The Duke Diaries (18 page)
“Yes, I know.”
The butler, in his boredom, and sudden decision that Rory was not going to steal anything in the cavernous front hall, strode off to attend to a silent query from an elegantly liveried footman.
Rory lowered his voice. “Has she always been this confounding?”
“Confounding?”
“Yes,” he continued. “So astonishingly courageous, and everything kind, and good, altruistic even, and then she becomes distracted, and distant, and mysteriously behaves as if one has moved to the bottom of her long list of friends, just when one is merely trying to help her.”
She interrupted him. “Verity doesn’t need anyone’s help, Your Grace.”
“I realize that. She is the strongest damn— Pardon me, Miss Primrose, but she is . . . Oh, I’m not going to continue. I have a reputation
not
to maintain, and I might as well, go forth and do what all exceedingly tedious good men are expected to do: allow their actions to speak to their character instead of words.”
“I don’t know, Your Grace, I know Verity would insist that words are just as important as actions.”
“Of course she would. She would expect nothing less than perfection in a gentleman.”
Miss Primrose arched an angelic blond brow. “Would you expect anything less in a lady, sir?”
He studied the beauty before him. Something bothered the corner of his mind that was always working, filing away facts whether he was aware of it or not. “You’re she,” he finally murmured.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’re she,” he said louder. “You’re the one held as a perfect model of a lady.”
A beatific smile slowly spread across her face. “How lovely.” She raised one brow again with the barest hint of mockery in her glance. “You have now made my life complete.” Her tone spoke of cool irony.
“Those were Verity’s words, madam.”
“Ah, that’s different. She has already made my life complete.”
He liked this female. And Verity was most probably right. On first acquaintance, Miss Primrose did not exhibit a single imperfection. But that was the thing of it.
Perfection held no appeal to him.
And that’s when he knew.
That’s precisely when he knew what he liked about Verity: she possessed all the important traits of a lady—true words, true actions, but confounding imperfection nonetheless. Her hats were a prime example. And Verity had intelligence and wit to spare. She would never, ever bore him, and he instinctively knew she would never let him down.
A lethal combination.
That meant only one thing. He was going back to Derbyshire.
To do what he most detested—but she would most like.
To wait for her.
V
erity missed Mary’s company on the long return ride to Derbyshire. Her friend had decided to remain at the Duke of Kress’s mad house party, which might have been ordered by the Prince Regent to marry off at least one of the royal entourage, but did not appear to be proceeding very smoothly in that direction. Indeed, it appeared to be careening wildly out of control, just like all events where the royal entourage could be found.
James had been furious at her for arriving unannounced, and even more so for defying his order to remain at Boxwood. Only Mary’s distracting beauty had allowed Verity to achieve her purpose. The next morning she had departed without even the archbishop to sermonize during the endless journey to the Peak District.
She had tried everything to distract herself from the hell of her own mind. She might have made two steps forward in her effort to resolve Amelia’s disastrous affair of which she again was responsible, but one glance at the suddenly popular pamphlets, written by the author of the currently defunct “Fashionable World” column, which were now available at every posting inn on the Royal Mail route, caused her to fall 101 steps back in her own catastrophic world.
There were no words to describe the depth of her despair. She had single-handedly:
1. Let down her brother, indeed her entire family, on two counts. Most likely when she was found out as the authoress of the diaries, she would forever tarnish the Fitzroy name for generations to come. Not to mention the whispers (which would soon become shouts) concerning her ruination after the revelation concerning the diaries.
2. Imperiled her most beloved Amelia the night at Carleton House.
3. Fallen in love once again with a man who did not love her.
4. Shown no moral fiber or the pride she
prided
herself with possessing when she had given into temptation to experience passion before banishing herself to the oblivion of the Lake District.
5. Asked a Bow Street Runner to locate the former author of “The Fashionable World” and then steal the diaries for her. Of course she had revealed that the diaries were hers, so it was not technically stealing, but the man took great offense at her request before he suddenly squinted at her and asked if she was Lady Verity Fitzroy. When she denied it, he laughed and told her he was already doing something for her so she had best be on her way. She refused to argue with a man who was clearly affected in his upper stories. Then near injury soon followed insult when a ruffian picked her pocket as she walked back to Mayfair.
6. Worst of all, she had pushed the entire country to the brink of anarchy, with all daggers raised toward the monarchy.
7. And finally, she had caused the gentleman who did not love her to be publicly accused of not only authoring her own treasonous ramblings, but even worse, of also blackmailing the Crown for a duchy. The most ironic part was that the columnist was correct. For some reason, aside from the day she had witnessed Rory’s encounter with Catharine Talmadge, she had never recorded any of his dissipated actions when she’d had the opportunity to spy on her brother’s friends.
In the middle of the third sleepless night, swaying with the rhythm of the well-sprung barouche, Verity suddenly sat up straight.
My God.
She had never written about Rory for one simple reason. He might have been present during many of the events described in detail in her diaries, and he might have made comments during the occasions, but . . .
He had never been the instigator of any foul play.
And . . .
He had never made a fool of himself.
Indeed, if anything, he had deftly managed to steer the oft-imes deep-in-their-cups members of the royal entourage from financial ruin or physical harm by way of his self-deprecating wit.
And yet all this time . . . everyone, herself included, had considered him the worst of the lot.
It was that perpetual way of his—that dark, forbidding, mysterious look he sported, along with a slight smile that made him appear dangerous and . . .
guilty
.
Verity’s hands began to shake violently. The tremors raced up her arms, and soon her entire body was trembling.
She had not only misunderstood him, along with the rest of the world, but she, who was so careful not to judge anyone, had misjudged him.
In her own selfish desire to protect herself from again loving a man who would never love her, she had not loved him unconditionally for himself. And she had even forced him to let down his guard, probably for the one and only time, regarding the love of his life—Catharine Talmadge.
While she might have eased some of the irrational guilt that he’d carried for twice as long as she, she had only added to it by forcing him to lay with her. And he had done so because, despite his dark wit, he was a giver.
Not a taker. She could not name a single person he had ever harmed.
She suddenly knew that Rory had loved Catharine long before James had ever allowed the wild beauty to claim his heart. And Rory would never have revealed to anyone Catharine’s and his attachment unless he could have offered for her.
And . . . oh God . . . it all fell into place.
At that time, everyone in Derbyshire knew that Rory’s father, the former Earl of Rutledge and his wife, lived to wager, and had gambled away nearly everything that was not nailed down or entailed.
Verity even remembered overhearing the old earl selling Rory’s horse to James, who had immediately agreed on the condition that it never be revealed to Rory and that the horse was to remain at Rutledge with future feed costs to be absorbed by James.
And so that was why Rory had pushed Catharine toward his best friend’s gilded cage. He didn’t want the lady he loved to live in straitened, shabby circumstances.
Rory Lennox, fourth Earl of Rutledge, first Duke of Abshire, was a sacrificial lamb in wolf’s clothing. He was not a—
The carriage rounded a corner, someone sounded a horn, and the barouche jerked to a stop. The tired driver’s muffled voice called out his apologies, and an ostler opened the carriage’s door.
Verity stumbled into darkness, exiting the vehicle.
And in that instant she righted herself.
Righted herself within the world of wrongs of her own making.
She might very well destroy herself in making everything right, but she was going to do what needed to be done, taking the least number of innocent bystanders down the rabbit hole with her.
And it would begin tonight.
“Mr. Jenkins?”
The faithful carriage driver of Boxwood had driven most of the way south and north, allowing his younger driver-in-training little time with the reins, because, Verity knew, he was always overly concerned with her safety.
He reached her side and tipped his hat. “My apologies again, Lady Fitzroy. There is no excuse for my error in—”
“Mr. Jenkins,” she interrupted, reaching for his cramped hand. His eyes widened.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Tend to your needs while the horses are changed. We are a mere ten miles from Boxwood, are we not?”
“Yes, Lady Fitzroy.”
“Go on, then. I will see you here in a quarter of an hour.”
“Of course, ma’am.”
Ten minutes later Verity mounted the barouche’s driving seat, with the aid of a very startled ostler, who was too in awe to stammer a word.
A moment later Mr. Jenkins returned with his bleary-eyed underling.
“I order you to not say a word, Mr. Jenkins. If you have an ounce of respect for me, then you and Tim will get in that stuffy velvet box behind me and go to sleep. You know very well I know how to drive.” She stared him down. “
You
taught me.”
Her old teacher of everything equine knew a madwoman when he saw one, and he complied without a sound. His apprentice followed meekly behind.
As the first true rays of daylight crept into the edges of the eastern sky, Verity expertly turned the final corner onto Boxwood’s manicured drive. The vast lawn and fields beyond, separated by a patchwork of hedgerows, shimmered with morning dew.
Each time she returned here, it was more beautiful than she remembered. Her heart filled with purpose, she prayed it would not be her last return.
V
erity mounted the outer stairs to the north front hall, touching the head of one of the stone nymphs along the way. Sunlight filtered through the woodland of the park.
A footman opened the mammoth carved oak door. She nodded, and after a word of greeting headed toward the stair. She would finally sleep in peace.
“Begging your pardon, my lady,” the footman began. “But you have a visitor.”
She halted and half turned. “At this hour?” The young man was anxious, she could see.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Who?”
“He’s been here from dawn until midnight the last five days, my lady,” he said in a rush. “His Grace, the Duke of Abshire.”
She nodded. “I see. And where is he, then?”
“In the library. I just escorted him there.” He looked at her expectantly.
“Very good.”
No wonder the stable hands and footman had greeted her with trepidation. Nothing could provoke anxiety among servants like unexplained odd behavior by the upper class.
As she walked along the east corridor, past the Oak Room with its forbidding, dark-paneled interior, her pace never altered.
He raised his head from a book he held in his lap. A small fire in the grate chased the chill in the long chamber.
She curtsied.
Rory rose from his seat, his movements elegant and precise. He placed the tome beside the Egyptian urn on the round table covered in moss-colored silk. “You’ve arrived,” he said simply.
“Yes. Just.”
The urge to run to him was strong, but she held back.
He crossed the space between them with slow, even strides.
He bowed and took up her gloved hand in his own. He turned her fingers and examined her soiled palm. “What happened?”
She finally exhaled, only to realize she had been holding her breath. She shrugged. “I love to drive from time to time.” She waited for a dry retort.
He looked at her with those green eyes of his that were so dearly familiar now. “So do I,” he said softly. “And how are you?”
She desperately did not want to ruin the apparent truce. “Well enough.”
“You are tired. I’m going to take my leave of you now so you can rest.”
He still held her hand in his own, and the warmth of them seeped into her numb fingers. “But why are you here?” She wouldn’t sleep unless she knew.
“To have the earliest possible news of your safe arrival.”
It hurt her heart to raise any hopes for a possible happy future. But she could not stop it. No one had ever done anything remotely so kind. “I thank you, Rory, for your concern. I’m deeply sorry if I caused you any worry.”
“Say no more”—he squeezed her hand gently—“I would only suggest that you write to Miss Primrose after you rest. She holds her cards close to her breast, but I believe she wishes to hear from you.” He paused. “I liked her. Very much. Your dear butler, the formidable Mr. Wharton, on the other hand, can go to the devil.”
Verity had feared she might never laugh again. But on the heels of his words, she let loose a flood of laughter. “You will not like it, but I cannot help but tell you that you sometimes remind me of him. And I like him. Very much.”
He refused to smile, but a muscle on the corner of his handsome mouth twitched. “Well, then. I shall take my leave of you.”
He dropped her hand. But just after turning to depart, he stopped in his tracks, then quickly turned back and closed the gap.
She swallowed as he stared down at her from his great height.
In a rush, he leaned down to press a kiss on her cheek. “I’m very glad to see you safe, V.”
She chastely kissed his other cheek, and just like that the awkwardness between them dissolved.
The only problem was . . . she needed the awkwardness, as that would make it easier for her to put to rights all her grave wrongs.
With a grave look, he bowed once and was gone.
Verity fell into a slumber like no other not a quarter hour after his departure.
She slept through her maid’s valiant attempt to wake her eight hours later, as Verity had requested. Four hours after, at six in the afternoon, her maid attempted again, armed with water and smelling salts. To no avail.
Another three hours passed before someone else attempted the impossible.
T
here was something about touching her skin that ignited a place within him with which Rory was not familiar. The flesh of the top of her hand was so soft, and yet her palm spoke of untold hours of handling a bridle’s reins.
He could not stop the grin he could feel spreading on his face. She was on her back, her mouth slightly open, and every once in a while she emitted a gurgling snore.
Her maid behind him cleared her throat in a most unpleasant manner. “I’ve tried everything to wake her, Your Grace.”
He brushed a stray lock of her warm, dark hair from her face and kept his gaze on her. “She is exhausted.”
“But it’s been more than fifteen hours. It’s nearly half ten at night!”
He finally turned and headed for the open door. “Madam, I don’t care if it’s half past never. Let her sleep.” He stopped at the door. “Uh, that’s an order, by the by.”
The maid appeared suitably chastened. “Of course, Your Grace.”
“Don’t look so forlorn. You can blame me when she wakes. Tell her I will be waiting for her in the library.” He sighed. “Forever the library, it appears.”
Her maid bobbed a curtsy and informed in a whisper, “His Grace, the Duke of Candover, keeps the racing journals in the upper west corner.”
“Lovely,” he whispered back. “Why are we whispering?”
She nodded toward her mistress. “She doesn’t approve of racing.”
“Why, that’s unpatriotic.”
“Not according to the horses, Lady Verity insists. And so her brother hides the journals so as to not offend her sensibilities.”
“His Grace is not very manly, is he?”
The maid giggled.
The night in the library passed with surprising swiftness as soon as Rory pushed together the two sofas that faced each other in front of the fire. Only his booted heels hung over the edge of one side of the strange contraption he had devised.
But it was not as secure as he had hoped, for when someone entered the great chamber and cleared her throat—Lord, would that maid ever just cough like normal servants?—he sat up and his posterior fell between the two sofas, which had chosen that moment to separate.
But it was not the maid with the annoying phlegm.
Verity rushed forward, placed a tray on a nearby table and rushed to help him to his feet.
“Thank you,” he said, rearranging his rumpled shirt. “Ah. Breakfast.” He squinted toward the daylight flooding from the windows. “Or is it nuncheon?”
“Both,” she replied. “You must be famished. You slept for hours and hours.”
“Your wit has taken a turn for the better, I see.”
“It is only natural. If I had only known what a solid eighteen hours could do for one’s spirits.”
When had her face become so dear to him? He had to physically restrain himself from going to her and taking her in his arms. Instead he rearranged the furniture to the original order, with the table between the two sofas. Silently, she moved the overburdened tray to the low table.
She sunk into the plush center cushion of one of the sofas, looked at him, and gently tapped the cushion beside her. He immediately complied like the lapdog he was meant to be.
They fell into an easy rhythm, with each of them taking turns at placing morsels of the delicacies on each other’s plates.
He was just on the point of dabbing a crumb from the corner of her lovely lips, as the initial action before kissing her senseless—as he should have when she had first returned—when the maid with the throat irritation (that he should insist required a three-month cure in the Swiss alps) intruded once again. Did no one knock before entering in this crumbling monstrosity?
“Excuse me. I’ve brought the
Morning Post
as soon as it arrived, as you requested, my lady. And the ostler, who returned the team from the posting inn, also brought a pamphlet.”
He stilled, before casually reaching for another hot bun. This should be interesting. Of late, the
Morning Post
had returned to its original purpose, that of advertisements on most of its pages. And the pamphlet? Probably a lot of blubbering, gnashing of teeth and wailing at thieves in the night and the unfairness of it all. The little knacker should be jailed for sedition.
Verity reluctantly handed him the pamphlet as she silently spread the pages of the paper. Her index finger traveled over the page until it slowed to a halt.
“Read it aloud, if you will?” he asked.
Her eyes filled with shock. “You first.”
“Of course,” he replied, opening the pamphlet.
He scanned it quickly and stood up suddenly without a word. Balling it into a wad, he tossed it into the fire.
“What did it say?” She stared at the burning mass.
“Nothing of importance.”
“That bad?”
“Not if you speak French like a native, and are good friends with the owner of a charming house in the Pays Basque . . . which I do and I am.”
She bowed her head. “So if I understood, you were in London recently.”
He nodded. The words of the pamphlet,
Prinny’s henchman might have stolen one of the diaries in my possession, but not the one I gave to my loyal employer at the
Morning Post
before I resigned,
were still hot points of light in his brain. The little bugger had probably sold the other diary to gain enough capital to begin publishing the pamphlets. May all scavengers go to hell.
He was losing his touch in the game. And Prinny would be furious.
“I assume you saw the recent column, which suggested you were the author of the diaries,” she continued.
He glanced at her. “Yes.” Would she ask him straight out if he was the infamous scribbler? Would she doubt him if he told her he was not? He waited.
“I know you’re not the author,” she whispered.
“And why is that?”
He was an expert at reading faces. As the creeping flush above her lace fichu began to rise to her cheeks, so did his instincts whisper to him that something was gravely amiss.
“Why did you follow me to London?” She twisted a napkin in her lap and then released it when she realized he was looking at her hands.
She had turned the subject. Ah, she learned quickly.
“Why did
you
go to London?” He kept his tone easy and neutral.
She glanced at her hands, which now covered her knees. “My abigail, well, she’s really a companion now—”
“Miss Primrose?”
“Yes . . .” She paused. “Right. You met her.”
“And dear Mr. Wharton.”
“Yes, I remember. I was a bit tired when I arrived last night. My memory is not serving me well.”
“So?”
“Of course.” She hesitated. “Miss Primrose has been unwell, and I was worried, so I decided to see firsthand how she was faring.”
“This is the female you consider the finest in Creation. The one your brother threatened to relieve the night at Carleton House, is it not? The archangel who was apparently tasked with keeping your bed free of marauders like me, I suppose?”
She shook her head. “How silly. James didn’t mean it.”
God.
Rory’s heart sank. She was protecting that beautiful devil of a servant. Miss Amelia Primrose was the author of the scandalous diaries.
Why hadn’t he pieced it together sooner? It made perfect sense.
He took up Verity’s hands again, which had begun to feel as if they belonged there. “Verity, listen to me. I am going to help you. I know who is the author of the diaries.”
She blanched. “You do?”
“Yes. And I can offer protection.” He stroked the back of one of her hands.
Her dark eyes turned serious. She shook her head.
“I promise I will see Miss Primrose safely out of the country. I know she is dear to you.”
Verity’s brow wrinkled. “You could do that if necessary?”
“Of course. I know you care for her like a sister.”
She closed her eyes and a shiver ran through her, before she reopened them. “Rory?”
“Yes, my love?”
She stared at him. “Who are you suggesting is the author of the diaries?”
He sighed. “You don’t have to protect her any longer by yourself. I already told you I will spirit your Amelia to safety, even if it costs me Prinny’s favor. I will do it,” he emphasized, “for
you
.”
“So you think Miss Primrose is the diarist?”
Perhaps he had been a bit too hasty in his conclusions about his beloved’s quickness of mind.
“Of course.”
Verity blinked. “You’re completely wrong.”
“Prove it.”
She pushed the
Morning Post
into his hands, which were still warm from the soft touch of her fingers, and stood up. The blush had disappeared from her face.
“Amelia was in Kent the month that entry was penned. She was not with me in London.”
Her expression was off. He gazed at her steadily. His sixth sense told him she had something more to say. She finally looked away.