“Do as you see fit, Smithers,” Will interrupted.
“Excellent, sir,” the valet responded, then nearly ran down the hall to the stairs.
If only Smithers could manage the whole of my life
, Will thought to himself, hesitating in the hall for a moment before making his way to the foyer.
When Will’s father was alive, dinner demanded military precision. The candles were lit to cast a warm glow over the entire room. The food was prepared to entice and delight, every course agonized over by the staff until no fault could be found in their offerings. The crystal and china shone like jewels, the silver sparkled, and the table linens were pressed to hard-edged perfection.
Or else.
Will had detested every meal in the ornate room, the painted pastoral scene circling the four corners only serving to irritate him further.
One of the first dictates he had given upon assuming the title had been to never eat another meal in the formal dining room. He’d seen to the packing up of the room himself, taking great delight in swathing his father’s chair in Holland cloth and distributing the ornate silver to a collection of street urchins he found down near the docks. They’d given him looks of disbelief when he’d approached with the rough sack of treasure, but quickly changed their minds when he began to dole out what would surely be a year’s worth of meals for each of them.
It would have killed his father to see such a thing, which was exactly why he did it.
Though he had to admit, observing his brother and mother’s attempt at normal behavior as they sat around the table in the morning room, he’d not considered the effect on the rest of his family.
“If I had known you were coming, Smithers would have seen to the airing of the dining room,” he said, cutting a large bite of mutton in half before forking it into his mouth.
The duchess took a demure sip of her wine and gave him a small smile. “What is good enough for you is good enough for us, William,” she answered quietly.
“And that is precisely the problem,” Will countered, dropping his knife and fork to the table with an audible thwack.
“It truly is tiresome to have the exact argument over and over again, wouldn’t you agree?” Lord Michael Randall pointed out, his face—the spitting image of Will’s—a tight mask of frustration.
Will glared at his younger brother, the urge to throttle him tempered only by his love for the young man. They’d been inseparable as children, their boyish pranks proving too much for nearly every nursemaid south of Hadrian’s Wall. And then their father’s hatred for everything familial intensified, causing Will to distance himself from Michael in an attempt to spare the boy from the ugliness.
It had worked, though Michael had not understood his older brother’s behavior, taking his cold treatment for dislike and betrayal rather than what it truly was.
Will had saved his brother’s life, and sacrificed his love in the process.
The loss of his brother’s respect had hit hard, but the realization that his mother would do nothing on his behalf hurt the most. No matter how cold his father’s treatment, the magnitude of his insults, or the viciousness of his behavior, she sat idly by, absorbing the damage in quiet pain.
He’d often wondered as a child about his parents’ relationship. His mother, so capable and assured with him and his brother, would be reduced to tears by his overbearing father. It was a transformation he could not understand—and one he came to detest.
“How long will you be in town?” Will asked abruptly, ignoring his brother’s statement.
The crease between the duchess’s eyebrows softened, the change in topic settling her. “Well, I suppose that depends entirely on you.”
Will drained his glass of wine and motioned for a servant to take his plate. “You know me, Mother, ever the amiable host. Stay as long as you like. The old pile of bricks is as much yours as it is—”
“No,” Her Grace smoothly interrupted. “You’ve misunderstood me. We received news of your courtship of Lady Lucinda Grey and had hoped our presence would be required in the not-so-distant future.”
“Bloody hell.”
“William—manners, please,” his mother chided, falling into the parental role much too easily for Will’s taste.
“My sentiments exactly,” Michael muttered, spearing an artichoke from his nearly empty plate.
Will propped his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “You mean to tell me that the gossipmongers took the time to spread such drivel all the way to Derbyshire?”
“I don’t know why you’re upset, William. It is wonderful news, is it not?” his mother answered. “Besides, Derbyshire is not as far from London as you make it out to be. And those gossipmongers you refer to are some of my closest friends, so I would thank you to be a bit more respectful when speaking of them. If it were not for them, we may not have heard for some time, which would have been more embarrassment than I could have withstood.”
The look on his mother’s face spoke clearly of the pain he’d caused in allowing her to find out such personal family news from anyone but him. The knowledge needled at Will’s heart.
He ran a hand through his hair and looked at Michael, who simply stared back at him, his face now expressionless. “A fat lot of good you are, then?” he said dryly.
“Oh, I’ve talked myself blue in the face, but the woman will hear nothing of it,” his brother said. “For some reason Mother is inclined to believe persons whose comments suggest you may be less than concerned over familial ties, though I can’t imagine why. And Lord knows I’m mmore than happy to continue performing the ducal duties—without the title, of course—so you’re able to … I’m sorry, Will, what is it that you do?”
“Michael, please,” the duchess said, the muscles in her jaw tightening. “We are here, together, as a family. That is what is important.”
Will could not take any more, especially in light of the day he’d endured. “I apologize. Can we be done with it?”
“Of course,” his mother answered quietly.
Michael nodded, the movement abrupt.
The duchess paused to let a servant clear her plate, then leaned slightly forward, a twinkle visible in her hazel eyes. “Now, when might we meet Lady Lucinda?”
“Bloody hell.”
“Lucinda, even King Solomon’s Mine could win against you today,” Victoria chided.
Lucinda pulled herself from her thoughts in time to see Charlotte stifling a small laugh.
She winked at Charlotte before turning her attention to the cards in her hands. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’ve been woolgathering, Aunt Victoria.” She played the four of hearts, wincing slightly at the headache pounding behind her eyes.
Victoria let out a “harrumph” of displeasure before adding her card to the table. “Woolgathering indeed. And over that Iron Will, I suppose. Tell me, is it absolutely necessary for you to meet his family?”
“Surely there is no need to be quite so cold, Victoria,” Charlotte protested, an audible “tsk, tsk” punctuating her words. “The dowager and I came out the same year, you know. She was something, quite out of the ordinary, until …”
Charlotte looked down at the book in her hand, fingering the pages slowly.
“Until …?” Lucinda asked, suddenly desperate to learn all that she could of Will, though equally anxious to keep such feelings from her aunts.
Charlotte reached for a length of moss green ribbon and placed it in her book before closing it. “Until she married the duke.”
“And then?”
“And then that man drained her of everything that made her who she was,” Victoria said bluntly, eyeing the cards on the table before looking up at her sisters and niece, all three frozen with looks of horror on their faces. “Well, he did, did he not? I didn’t know her personally but according to the endless supply of gossip, the woman was the most vibrant of beings before marrying Clairemont and a miserable captive after.”
Lucinda turned to Charlotte. “Is this true?”
“I’m afraid so. Despite having the attention of every eligible bachelor that year, she fell in love with Clairemont.” Charlotte set the book on the small side table and adjusted the soft woolen throw. “No one could blame her. He was a duke, after all, and terribly handsome.”
“And charming,” Bessie added, her head tilted and eyes hazed over ever so slightly as she thought back to her younger days. “Oh, so charming.”
“Yes, well, he was all of these things and more. Unfortunately, beneath the smiles and handsome façade, there beat a heart as black as the moors on a December night. No one believed his dalliances with other women would stop once he was married.”
“No one except the duchess,” Victoria interrupted, her voice softening. “She fell for the roué despite all the rumors of debauchery, and lived to pay the price. Poor woman.”
Lucinda set a card on the table without looking at it. “He did not stop, then?”
“Oh, the exact opposite, I’m afraid. If the gossipmongers were to be believed, the duke tortured his wife not only with his affairs but with verbal thrashings, and, on occasion, physical violence, too.”
“She could do nothing,” Charlotte said. “His Grace threatened to take everything from her, even the children, if she dared to disobey him.”
Lucinda fanned her cards out on the table, her brows knitting together. “She was trapped. And he knew it.”
“Exactly so. I think it’s fair to say that the day the duke dropped dead in his mistress’s bed was, perhaps, the happiest day of Her Grace’s life.”
“And the boys?” Lucinda wondered aloud.
The three aunts looked at one another for a time, Charlotte finally speaking. “Dear, we would not want you … that is to say—”
“Regardless of their father’s treatment, they are grown men, fully capable of making their own decisions, good or bad,” Victoria interrupted, leaning across the card table to take Lucinda’s hand. “We would not want to sway your regard for the duke based on the sins of his father.”
“The boys?” Lucinda pressed, knowing the answer but needing to hear it regardless.
“There were rumors; servants and staff who shared stories with other servants and staff, who passed the information on to their employers. Your Iron Will took the brunt of it—out of choice, if memory serves. He adored his younger brother, by all accounts, and purposefully set himself between the father and the boy.”
Could this be why he’s strayed so far outside society?
Lucinda wondered to herself, pieces beginning to fall into place before her eyes.
Victoria squeezed Lucinda’s hand with her own, then leaned back against the mahogany parlor chair. “This revelation should not be calculated into your dealings with the duke,” she said her firm tone in place once more. “No matter his history, he is who he is, and that, my dear, does not change.”
Despite the lack of candlelight, Lucinda’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness of her room. Moonlight filtered in around the curtains, throwing shadows here and there. She’d long since abandoned her games, naming this shadow a minotaur, and that one a lamb, all in an attempt to hasten sleep.
Slumber had not come, yet Lucinda could not bring herself to leave the bed, the warmth of her cashmere coverlet creating a cozy nest that provided some comfort in the absence of rest.
The invitation to attend the opera with Will and his family lay next to her pillow, the fine linen paper creased from her repeated readings. The day had been long and hard, in no small part due to the brandy she’d so foolishly imbibed the night before. But she knew she could not pin the entirety of her current state on the liquor.
No matter how many times she examined her feelings, replayed the events of the last days, or imagined any number of possible outcomes, Lucinda could not deny one truth: William Randall, the Duke of Clairemont, had conquered her heart.
“I love him,” she said into her pillow, the sound of her voice ringing unfamiliar to her own ears.
The revelations earlier in the evening concerning Will’s childhood had not, as her aunts had feared, swayed her. Not completely, that is. Their interlude at Almack’s had started her mind racing, the intimacy of the encounter still overwhelming her, even now. They were not suited; all of the ton—including her three aunts—were in agreement that such a match would be unthinkable. Impossible.
Insanity.
Lucinda fidgeted with the cream ribbon at her bed-gown’s neckline. “Do you truly love Will?”
She looped the ribbon around her forefinger, tightening it as she went. “I do.”
He might be just as his father was, utterly charming yet a monster underneath. He could ruin her reputation with hardly any effort, leaving her without the comfort of family and friends. He could simply not love her—the thought surprisingly painful, yet altogether possible.
He could change everything she’d expected for her life, something Lucinda found most frightening of all.
She released the ribbon and gently massaged her finger, slightly numb from the pressure of the binding.
Her feelings for Will were simple. They were pure. This was everything Lucinda had been missing without even being aware that something was lacking.
“I love him.”
But could he love her in return?
It was decided that Charlotte would act as Lucinda’s chaperone for the evening, though it had taken some time for the four women to reach an understanding. Lucinda had done her best to remain impartial, but she’d secretly hoped that it would be Charlotte who accompanied her. Bessie would have tried to seduce Will’s brother, and Victoria may have used the opportunity to suggest the duke abandon the courtship all together and simply hand over the horse.
Charlotte’s previous acquaintance with the duchess had been the deciding factor, and the other two had reluctantly complied, leaving Lucinda free to fret over her dress and hair, her jewels and slippers.
She looked from the blush silk to the capucine silk in Mary’s arms, feigning interest for the sake of holding off what would surely be a litany of questions from Mary regarding the duke.
Lucinda couldn’t have cared less what she wore. Her feelings for Will made clothing seem a trivial matter that held little importance to her at the moment.