How to Tame Your Duke (8 page)

Grimsby looked up at last, his blue eyes solemn behind the sheen of his spectacles. “They are not, Your Grace.”

“But you speak of them still, do you not? Time, you see, heals all wounds. Well, not all,” he said, lifting his right arm briefly and letting it fall into his lap. “But there’s no point in ignoring our misfortunes.”

“No, I suppose not.”

Ashland leaned forward. The sherry, perhaps, was making him bold. “You’re a circumspect fellow, Mr. Grimsby. I own myself curious. Have you nothing to relate about yourself?”

“Nothing to interest Your Grace, I’m certain.”

Grimsby’s face did not change; his gaze did not waver by so much as a lowered eyelash. But Ashland’s finely honed senses came awake. Olympia’s words echoed back from a dusty Kashmir road:
Beware the man who has nothing at all to say for himself.

The Duke of Olympia, who had dispatched this young man to Ashland Abbey.

Ashland reached into his waistcoat pocket and produced his watch. Only a few minutes past midnight, after all. He replaced the watch, stretched his arms, and rose to his feet. “I believe I shall have a glass of sherry, Mr. Grimsby. Will you join me?”

“No, thank you, sir.”

Ashland felt Grimsby’s wary eyes follow him once more across the room to the tray of decanters on a little round table near the window. “Come, Mr. Grimsby. I insist. I find a glass sets me up perfectly before bed.” He uncorked the crystal decanter with a clink and poured out two glasses.

Grimsby’s eyes widened behind his spectacles as Ashland returned, the two glasses held between the fingers of his left hand. “Sir, I . . .”

Ashland set the glasses on the table. The candlelight flashed across the neat snowflake facets on the bowls. “I insist.”

Grimsby reached out one delicate hand and picked up a glass.

“A toast, Mr. Grimsby,” said Ashland, lifting his own glass and tilting it forward. He ignored the singing of anticipation in his veins. “To a prosperous relationship.”

“Indeed, sir.” Grimsby clinked Ashland’s glass and took a cautious sip.

“Drink up, my good man. It’s excellent sherry. I have it brought in directly from Portugal every year.”

Grimsby drank again, more deeply. “Yes, very fine.”

“You are wrong, you know, Mr. Grimsby. I am, in fact, genuinely interested in you. A young man of obvious intelligence and breeding, to say nothing of self-possession. Why, I find myself asking, would such a promising fellow accept a position of very small importance and remuneration, in such a lonely outpost of the world?” He drank his sherry and stretched out his legs, still encased in their polished leather riding boots, dark with use.

“You are too modest, Your Grace. The salary is more than generous.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“Possibly you do not comprehend the limited opportunities available to a man my age, of no practical experience.”

“You have the patronage of the Duke of Olympia.” Ashland snapped out the words with a trifle more force than he intended. He was woefully out of practice at this.
Keep your emotions in check, my boy
, came the voice in his head.
You are a man of great animal passion; it is both your strength and your weakness.

“Many others enjoy the patronage of the powerful. And after all, I am not particularly ambitious.” Grimsby took another sip of sherry, as if to cover a hesitation. “I don’t wish to be a man of business, in charge of important affairs. I only want my books, and enough money to keep myself.”

“And a wife? Family? You have no desire for these comforts?”

“I . . . I suppose so.” A flush rose from beneath Grimsby’s whiskers. “One day.”

“No inclination at all for female companionship?”

“Not so much as you, it seems.”

Ashland had been drinking steadily, and his glass was now empty as he twiddled it between his fingers. “You disapprove of my errand tonight?”

“It is not my place.” Grimsby looked down to the book before him and ran his finger along the edge of the binding. “I suppose it’s no more than natural for you to . . . for the physical urge . . .”

“I understand you perfectly, Mr. Grimsby. I can only hope word of my appalling licentiousness does not find its way to my friend Olympia’s ear. I am afraid he might disapprove.”

Grimsby’s head shot up. “Of course not, Your Grace! I shouldn’t dream of such a thing!”

His tone was so shocked, so full of genuine dismay, so entirely innocent of the irony in Ashland’s words, that Ashland found himself poised in the air, vacillating between suspicion and admiration. He said softly, “Then my friend Olympia has merely done me a favor, out of the generosity of his heart, in sending you to me?”

“I . . . I don’t believe I understand you, sir.”

Ashland stood. His head swam briefly, and righted itself. He placed his empty sherry glass on the table and observed how the candlelight radiated about Grimsby’s golden hair like a halo. “Nothing at all, Mr. Grimsby. My intellect is a little disordered tonight, I fear.”

Grimsby was rising from his chair. “Are you all right? May I help you at all?”

“I am entirely well. Thank you for the conversation, Mr. Grimsby. I hope we may repeat the pleasure often, of an evening, as the winter howls outside.” He waved his hand at the window.

“You are retiring, Your Grace?”

“Yes.” Ashland studied Grimsby’s face, his narrowed eyes behind his spectacles, the tiny crease of concern between his eyebrows. He was so earnest, so wise and naive all at once. “You are rather an intriguing young fellow, you know,” he said absently.

Grimsby’s hand fell upon his book. “I am nothing of the sort.”

“I can’t help wondering if there’s a great deal more to you than you let on.”

“I beg your pardon. What do you mean?”

Ashland straightened himself. He should not have drunk that extra glass of sherry; his body wasn’t used to it. But it was rather nice, after all, to have his brain pleasantly encased in numbness, to feel that hum in his blood again, to sense nothing in his missing hand but a comfortable bluntness. “I don’t quite know what I mean, Mr. Grimsby,” he said. He smiled, reached out his hand, and chucked the poor fellow’s astonished jaw.

“But I look forward to finding out.”

*   *   *

T
he door closed behind the Duke of Ashland’s imposing body, and Emilie crumpled into her chair. She closed her eyes, but she could still see his face in front of her, the black leather mask against the smooth skin, the single bright blue eye examining her with minute care.

You are rather an intriguing young fellow, you know.

Emilie took a deep breath. Was it her imagination, or could she smell him in the air? The sting of sherry, the wild moorland wind, the warm wool, the scent of spicy soap—sandalwood, perhaps. Or maybe it was only her. She lifted her arm and sniffed her sleeve.

No, she smelled nothing like that.

Her heart still beat quickly in her breast; her fingertips still tingled. What the devil was happening to her? That tall, broad man with his piercing eye and maimed face and empty cuff—good God, surely she was not infatuated with him? With the Duke of Ashland, not two hours out of some strumpet’s bed, his powerful legs stretched out before her and his hair gleaming white against the shadows of the library?

Emilie lifted her hand again and touched her jaw with her fingertips. She could feel him now, feel the instant thrill in her veins as his hand came toward her, as her skin anticipated his touch. She, Emilie, cool-blooded and studious, a princess of Germany!

A distant thump reached her ears: Ashland, climbing the stairs to his room.

But I look forward to finding out.

Emilie reached for her glass of sherry and drained it.

This was going to be a very long winter.

Two days before Christmas

T
he common room at the Anvil was as crowded as usual, a fact on which Emilie had been counting. She clutched her knapsack and breathed the stale and humid air as shallowly as possible. Around her, the men laughed and swore and ate and drank. The fire burned smokily along the wall. Rose the barmaid bustled about, her hands never free of tankards, her mouth giving as good as she got, which was plenty.

Emilie observed her closely. When she ducked into the taproom to fill her next round, Emilie followed her.

“I need a room,” she said quietly, and held out her palm, on which a gold sovereign caught the light from the swinging old-fashioned lantern overhead. “A private room, close to the back stairs.”

Rose stared at the sovereign, then stared at Emilie. “With a girl, or without?”

Emilie blushed. “Without.”

There was no furniture in the tiny chamber to which Rose led her, except for the bed that overwhelmed the space, but Emilie did not need furniture. She set down her knapsack, opened the flap, and stripped to her drawers in the cold air.

Chemise first, then stays. The fastenings gave her trouble, but she had selected a new corset with efficiency in mind, knowing she would have no lady’s maid to help her. Petticoats and sturdy little half boots: Her chilled fingers fumbled with the buckles until she had them all.

Her dress had rumpled in the knapsack, despite her best efforts at folding. It buttoned up the front, because she would never have been able to manage otherwise. For a moment she savored the fall of fine wool down her body, the swell of material at her hips, the lovely, heavy feminine swish of skirts around her legs.

At last she reached inside the knapsack for the final two items: a small hat, and a large false chignon, made from the thick golden pile of hair that had fallen from Miss Dingleby’s scissors a month ago. She did not pause for melancholy. She pinned her short hair back, pinned the chignon at the nape of her neck, and placed the hat over all.

She stuck her head out the door. There was no one in the hall. She stole quietly to the back stairs and slipped noiselessly down.

The wind had calmed today, and the late December air lay heavy and frozen against Emilie’s exposed cheeks. A steady trickle of townspeople were out, finishing Christmas errands, and instead of taking the high street down the center of town, Emilie stole around the back lanes, taking note of details and street names, as Miss Dingleby had instructed. A train pulled away from the station, the hourly service southward to York, as she passed by.

The buildings thinned; the noise of commerce died away. Ahead, the clean white shape of Ashland Spa Hotel came into view, its marble facade fronting the road like an ancient Roman bath transported to modern Yorkshire.

Emilie took off her spectacles, slid them into her pocket, and went around back to the garden entrance.

“My dear.” A slight figure rose from his chair in the restaurant, straightened his lapels, and grasped Emilie’s outstretched hand.

“Good afternoon, sir,” said Emilie, smiling, as the man bent over and kissed the air above her gloved knuckles.

“Good afternoon, Miss Bismarck.” The gentleman looked up, and Miss Dingleby’s eyes danced in place before her beneath the curved brim of a neat black hat.

“How very good it is to see you, Mr. Dingleby,” said Emilie.

“Sit, my dear. You must be exhausted.” Miss Dingleby gestured to the other chair.

Emilie settled herself into her chair, remembering at the last instant to complete the action with a graceful swoop of her skirts. “It’s only four miles. Hardly half an hour’s brisk riding.”

“But your delicate constitution.” Miss Dingleby winked and picked up the menu. “Rather elevated fare, isn’t it, for such a godforsaken outpost of civilization?”

Emilie cast her gaze about the room. She had taken tea here with Freddie a week or so ago, and had looked with the same surprise as Miss Dingleby on the spacious, high-ceilinged grandeur of the lobby, the fluted pillars and the shining marble floor, the intricate plasterwork and the oval domed skylight aglow with tinted glass. The soaring space had swarmed with people. Where had they all come from? Ladies, mostly, dressed in trailing veils and enormous bustles, attended by maids with white caps and neatly buttoned collars. They had gone back and forth between the lobby and the bathing pools in the enclosed courtyard at the center of the hotel, and as teatime advanced they had trooped into the blue and white interior of the restaurant and sat at the elegant marble tables and drunk their tea with fingers extended into the lily-scented air.

“It isn’t so remote,” Emilie said. “I believe they see a great many fashionable guests. The duke has transformed the spa into an establishment of repute.”

“Has he, now? The clever fellow.” Miss Dingleby’s voice lowered a trifle. She was wearing dark whiskers along her jaw but no mustache, and her cheeks twitched. Emilie’s own skin itched in sympathy.

“He’s spent the last ten or twelve years diligently improving the town and the estate,” Emilie said, leaning forward. “And he’s got even more plans in contemplation. You ought to see the schemes, really. It’s remarkable.”

“No doubt.”

“Of course, it all depended on the railway link. He petitioned for it himself; did you know that? And helped to fund its construction. Olympia assisted him in getting the necessary approvals and so on. You know how well connected my uncle is.”

“Indeed, I do. Good afternoon,” said Miss Dingleby, addressing a waiter who hovered nearby. “Tea, if you please. Do you have a decent Lapsang souchong?”

“Indeed we do, sir. An excellent blend.”

“The Lapsang, then. And the usual complement of sandwiches and biscuits.” Miss Dingleby smiled at the waiter and tented her fingers together on the tablecloth. “I find myself famished after such an arduous journey.”

“Yes, sir.” The waiter bowed and left.

Emilie folded her hands in her lap. The unbroken stretch of her skirt felt foreign beneath her fingers. Her chignon rested heavily on her neck, and she resisted the urge to touch beneath the brim and assure herself that some stray lock hadn’t fallen away from its pins to betray her. “Are you certain this is wise? Meeting like this.”

“Well, you can’t simply meet me as Mr. Grimsby, when someone about town might recognize you and ask questions,” said Miss Dingleby. “And nobody here would recognize you as Emilie, particularly without your spectacles, and particularly in tête-à-tête with a young man.”

“But it’s so public. So exposed. Anyone might see us.”

“My dear, if we were to meet furtively behind the inn, or steal upstairs to a bedroom, we would most certainly be suspected. The best place to hide a clandestine meeting”—Miss Dingleby waved her hand, and her signet ring flashed in the bright electric light—“is in plain sight.”

Emilie glanced idly at a nearby table. “Is it necessary, though?”

“Your uncle wishes to assure himself of your well-being.”

“But surely my letters . . .”

“Could easily be forged by some clever agent.” Miss Dingleby picked up her napkin and laid it upon her lap with a practiced and decidedly masculine movement, quite unlike the Miss Dingleby Emilie had known for so many years. “He was not willing to take such a chance.”

Emilie studied the curve of Miss Dingleby’s hair, which had been combed back with pomade and clubbed at the back, in a rather bohemian manner. Clever, she thought, remembering rather wistfully the heavy golden piles of her own hair on the bedroom floor, as Miss Dingleby had shorn her for her disguise. “He trusts you a great deal, my uncle.”

“Yes.” Miss Dingleby exposed her neat white teeth in a smile. “He does.”

The tea arrived; Emilie poured out. “And you seem to know a great deal about clandestine meetings.”

“I read a great many detective stories. Far more than is good for me, I daresay. Ah, that’s lovely,” she said, working her whiskers as she swallowed the tea. “The swill in York station was all but undrinkable. But to work. I regret to say I have very little to relate . . .”

“How are my sisters?”

“They are very well indeed. Settling in nicely, I believe.” Miss Dingleby patted her waistcoat pocket. “I have letters from them for you.”

“But they’re not allowed to tell me where they are.”

“We could not commit such details to paper, of course. The risk would be dreadful. Still, I think you’ll find they’re both as well as could be expected, under the circumstances.”

“And we have discovered nothing more about my father’s murderers?”

“Inquiries are being made, of course.”

Emilie curled her left hand into a fist on her lap. With her right, she gripped the teacup hard and brought it to her mouth. “I wish,” she said, when the tea was safely down the appropriate pipe, “you’d tell me more. I have a brain, you know. I might be able to help.”

Miss Dingleby shook her head. “If you were to help, you’d expose yourself, and I doubt you have any idea how ruthless, how cunning these men can be.”

“But why should anybody want to kill my father and Peter?”

“Any number of reasons. No doubt you’re aware of the political situation in Europe.” Miss Dingleby selected a piece of cake and applied herself with enthusiasm.

“Anarchists, you mean?”

“Perhaps.”

Emilie’s cup fell into its saucer with a clatter that echoed against the genteel marble shell of the Ashland Spa restaurant like a gunshot. “How I do wish you would tell me something.”

“My dear! What a fuss. Look,” Miss Dingleby went on, a little more kindly, “if you must know, we have heard a few vague clues. A group of men dissatisfied with the pace of political liberation in Europe. We are investigating.”

“
We.
You and Olympia, do you mean?”

“No, no. I’m merely a messenger, you understand.” Miss Dingleby slipped the last of her cake into her mouth. “As a trusted retainer of the family. But I did not come here to speak of His Grace’s investigations, of which there’s little to tell. I came to assure myself that you’re well, and to offer my ear and shoulder. I imagine you must find it difficult, playing a part at all times. And Ashland’s household, so I understand, is not the most convivial. You must be dreadfully lonely.” Miss Dingleby’s eyes regarded Emilie steadily.

“Not so much as I feared,” she said. “Lord Silverton is lively and intelligent. Amusing company, really, when he’s not sulking. And the servants are quite nice. Far more familiar than I’ve been accustomed to, though perhaps that’s only because I’m one of them.”

“Not quite, my dear.” Miss Dingleby smiled. “And His Grace, the Duke of Ashland? A difficult man, they say.”

Emilie had just begun on a rather large piece of cake, which gave her time to consider her reply. “I don’t think so, really. He’s only lonely.”

“Lonely?”

“He’s had no one to talk to, until now.”

“He talks to you?”

Emilie’s cheeks began to warm. “We meet in the library sometimes, in the evening. Chess and that sort of thing. We don’t speak much. He’s not talkative. The current news, the weather, a bit of politics. How Freddie’s getting on.” Even saying those meager words, Emilie drew the scent of sherry and leather into her head, saw the glow of the flickering candles. He did not come every night, of course. She would sit in her leather chair, reading and waiting, pretending that her heart didn’t quicken at the sound of his heavy tread in the hallway, or that her limbs didn’t lighten as the footsteps grew louder and approached the library door. She always left it cracked open invitingly, always laid a few extra coals in the fireplace and lighted another candle or two as the usual hour drew near.

Hoping, and hoping not.

Most nights, the footsteps went right by the door. Occasionally, Emilie felt a pause, a gentle hesitation in his pace, as if he were considering whether to go in. She would shift her seat, turn an unread page, grip the leather binding to stop the quivering of her fingers.

Usually, the footsteps resumed, and the Duke of Ashland climbed the stairs to his bedroom. But every so often, perhaps once a week, the heavy door would creak open and he would fill the empty space, his giant form outlined against the darkened hallway, his face lit into splendor by the golden glow of the candles, his bleached hair cropped against his head, a tiny smile lurking at the corner of his mouth. “Good evening, Mr. Grimsby,” he would say, in that sonorous voice. “Studying late again, I see.”

Somehow she would remain calm. She would close her book around her index finger and say something like,
Yes, Your Grace. I find the reading steadies my mind before bed
, and of course the word
bed
would ricochet like a rifle about the room and she would hope that the candles weren’t bright enough to reveal her blushing cheeks beneath her whiskers.

Ashland would saunter in, all economical grace, and select a book from the shelves, or drop down on a chair and make a few lines of conversation, or offer her a glass of sherry. “Do you play chess, Mr. Grimsby?” he’d asked, just the night before, and she’d said,
Why, yes, I do, though I’m sadly out of practice
, and he’d brought out a chessboard and played with her for nearly an hour, mostly in silence, but occasionally offering observations and even once an anecdote about a chess match during a wretched storm on the steamer out to India.