A Duke In Need Of A Wife

Babbage cleared his throat, reminding them all, tactfully, that they were keeping a duke kicking his heels in the hallway. Not that she could account for a man claiming to be a duke turning up and asking after her. As far as she was aware, she’d never met a duke in her life.

‘Yes, yes, show him in here, then,’ said Uncle Ned impatiently. ‘Must be some mistake. Get it cleared up in a trice, I dare say. Ah, good morning,’ he said, tossing his newspaper aside and getting to his feet to greet the man who strolled in. As though he owned the place. Which was what he was claiming, though he couldn’t possibly. For this was no duke. This was the waiter from the evening of the fireworks that had gone wrong.

The waiter nodded to her uncle, then made straight for her, his ferocious brows lowering into an expression of concern.

‘Your poor face,’ he said, stretching out a hand as though he would have stroked her black eye, only withdrawing it at the very last moment, as though suddenly recollecting his manners.

But she felt as though he’d touched her all the same. Which gave her a very odd feeling. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had looked as though they had wanted to touch her with affection. Or concern. Certainly not Aunt Agnes. On first seeing Sofia, she’d shuddered with revulsion before sending her off to be stripped and scrubbed clean by a very junior housemaid. And had held her at arm’s length ever since.

‘Try to remember you are a lady born,’ was her most frequent refrain. Which had swiftly supplanted her first maxim: ‘You are in England now and must act accordingly.’

Although last night, after seeing Sofia’s ruined gown and not seeing Betty’s cloak, she’d bombarded Sofia with just about her entire arsenal of verbal weaponry. And this morning, when she’d arrived at the breakfast table sporting a black eye, far from reaching out to her the way this man had just done, she’d raised her hand to her own brow. ‘Just like your father,’ she’d moaned. ‘Never happier than when he was neck deep in mischief.’

Which was most unfair. Sofia had worked so hard to become a Proper English Young Lady that nowadays everyone within ten miles of Nettleton Manor thought she was a dead bore.

‘Has your niece,’ said the waiter who was masquerading as a duke, ‘received medical attention since the night of the bonfire?’ He rounded on her uncle, looking distinctly annoyed.

‘It is only a few bruises and scratches, nothing more,’ said Aunt Agnes in self-defence.

He then raised one of those eyebrows towards her aunt in a way that would have shrivelled Sofia, had it been directed at her.

For a moment, Sofia thought about telling Aunt Agnes that there was no need to quail under the force of those eyebrows. They might look lethal, but they adorned the forehead of a mere waiter. Not a duke.

However, it wasn’t often that anyone took her part against her uncle and aunt. And so she remained silent while Aunt Agnes flushed and began to stammer excuses.

‘She sees a doctor regularly. She is here for her health, after all. For the sea bathing.’

‘Her health?’ His voice dripped with such disdain even Sofia could see how he could pass for a duke. ‘Then what was she doing out at night, in the chill air?’

‘It’s all moonshine, the notion that Sofia is invalidish,’ broke in Uncle Ned. ‘This trip to the seaside is all down to my wife’s brother putting a lot of ridiculous ideas into their heads.’

Sofia blushed and hung her head, since Uncle Ned was closer to stating the truth than he knew. And she still felt a bit guilty about the way her Uncle Barty had manipulated them into bringing her here.

‘What you need,’ he’d said, the last time he’d been over to visit her, ‘is to get away from this devilish dull backwater and meet some people other than rustics. Go about a bit. Attend some dances. That will put the roses back into your cheeks,’ he’d prophesied. And then he’d proceeded to harangue his sister for neglecting Sofia to such good effect that they’d all decamped to the fashionable seaside town of Burslem Bay, to see if a course of sea bathing might help restore her appetite, so that she’d regain the weight she’d lost over winter.

‘Now, Ned, that isn’t fair,’ said Aunt Agnes. ‘Poor Sofia was wasting away...’

Uncle Ned snorted. ‘You wouldn’t have dreamed of spending all this money on a cottage by the sea if your pestilential brother hadn’t started throwing his weight around.’

‘But he is as much her guardian as either of us, Ned. Of course he thinks he has a say in her welfare...’

Sofia was beginning to curl up with embarrassment. It was bad enough when they argued about her as if she wasn’t there. But to do so in front of a stranger, as well?

The so-called Duke gave the bickering couple another look of disdain, before sauntering across the room and taking the chair next to hers.

‘You must wish to know how Mrs Pagett is faring,’ he said.

‘Mrs Pagett?’ Lord, but her voice had come out all squeaky. But then he was a bit overwhelming, up close. He exuded so much confidence and vitality.

Just as if he really was a duke.

‘The woman whose aid you went to when her dress caught fire.’

‘Oh, yes, thank you! How is she? Did you find a doctor for her—?’

‘Sofia, really,’ her aunt interrupted, roused from her quarrel with Uncle Ned by the sound of Sofia actually conducting a conversation which she was not supervising. ‘Remember your manners. Please forgive her, Your Grace. I am sure she does not mean to be so impertinent, peppering you with questions like that.’

‘Not at all,’ said the waiter-Duke. ‘She is merely expressing a very feminine curiosity and concern for someone whose unfortunate accident has clearly shocked her very much.’

Sofia promptly decided she liked him, no matter whether he was a waiter or a duke, or something else entirely. For nobody, apart from Uncle Barty on the rare occasions he could be bothered to visit, had ever defended her from one of her aunt’s criticisms, not to her face like that. Not in all the years she’d been living under her roof. The locals had all, without exception, expressed sympathy upon hearing that Lady Norborough had taken in the orphaned offspring of her scapegrace younger brother. And prophesied that she’d have her hands full taming the result of such a scandalous match as he’d made.

Having delivered his set-down, the waiter who claimed to be a duke turned back to Sofia. ‘My personal physician is overseeing her treatment. He thought it best to install a nurse in her home, for day-to-day care. He informs me that her injuries are not so severe as you might suppose, given the spectacle she made when her gown caught fire. The damage was confined mostly to her clothes and the lower part of her legs, particularly her right leg. And her hands when she tried to beat out the flames. There is some blistering about the face and the loss of some hair, but I am informed it will grow back. Her hair, that is.’

Sofia shuddered. ‘Oh, how awful. The poor woman. But thank goodness you got to her so quickly.’

He dipped his head in acknowledgement of the part he’d played in Mrs Pagett’s drama.

‘How I wish... I mean, is there anything I can do?’

‘Of course there is nothing you can do, you foolish girl,’ said Aunt Agnes. ‘You are not a doctor. I cannot think how you came to be mixed up in such a squalid scene in the first place.’

Nor had Sofia, to start with. But as she’d lain in bed the night before, she’d remembered how her papa had always used to say she was full of pluck. That nobody nowadays thought so stemmed, she suspected, from the horrible events surrounding her papa’s death. By the time she reached Nettleton Manor, she’d been so relieved to finally find refuge that she’d done her utmost to fit in. It had taken a couple of years before she’d been able to stop worrying that her newly discovered family were not going to throw her out if she displeased them. And by then, the habit of behaving with extreme caution had taken deep root.

She still swam, though, and climbed trees, whenever she was sure nobody would find out. And last night, when she’d seen that lady in such awful trouble, she hadn’t stopped to think about the consequences. She’d just run to help.

While all this was flashing through Sofia’s mind, the Duke had turned to give Aunt Agnes a really blistering look. ‘Your niece appears to have a very compassionate nature, Lady Norborough. I am sure her enquiries as to what she could do extended only to visiting to offer comfort, or something of that sort.’ He turned back to Sofia. ‘Am I correct?’

‘Well, no... I mean, I am sure I would not be permitted to actually visit,’ she said with regret, darting an anxious glance in her aunt’s direction. Visiting the lower orders was one of the things she said Sofia was to avoid at all costs, considering the company she’d kept in her earliest years. ‘But I did wonder if I could contribute, financially, towards her care...’

‘Now just a minute...’ This time it was Uncle Ned who was raising an objection.

‘It does your niece credit,’ said the Duke. ‘However, in this instance, Miss Underwood,’ he said, turning to her and gentling his tone, ‘the care of Mrs Pagett will be charged to the committee who organised the event. After all, they were responsible for the safety of all those who attended the supper and fireworks. Whatever it was that caused about two-thirds of them to go off simultaneously, instead of one at a time, there can be no doubt about that.’

He got to his feet and looked at her aunt and uncle for a moment or two in the kind of silence that had them all holding their breath.

‘I shall call to take your niece for an airing in my carriage, tomorrow. Be ready,’ he said, turning to her, ‘at three.’

Chapter Three

For the second time in as many days, Oliver drew his curricle up outside Miss Underwood’s lodgings, wondering why on earth he was altering his busy schedule to squeeze in a meeting with her. He’d had no intention of doing more than assuring himself she was recovering properly from the incident at the fireworks when he’d called the day before. He certainly hadn’t intended to invite her out for a drive.

But then her aunt and uncle had talked over her so dismissively. Which was so unjust, given the bravery she’d shown in rushing to Mrs Pagett’s help.

He hadn’t liked the way her uncle had dragged her away that night.

And he hadn’t liked the way they’d both berated her for behaviour that to him seemed compassionate and caring.

That was what had prompted him to invite her to drive with him this afternoon—the chance to detach her from their overbearing, disapproving presence, so that he could talk to her freely. About Mrs Pagett.

It had nothing to do with the flare of attraction he’d felt when he’d seen her sitting in that drawing room, in full sunlight. He met dozens of pretty girls all the time. She was nothing out of the ordinary. It was just that he had a preference for slim brunettes with brown eyes, that was all. The fact that he’d seen her legs through her ripped gown had probably stoked the more primitive side of his nature, too. He had no need to worry that he was developing an unhealthy interest in her.

In fact, by the time he’d driven her through the town and along the seafront he was bound to have discovered some flaw in her personality which would enable him to relegate her to the status of passing fancy.

He tossed the reins to his groom, pressing his lips into a firm, determined line. The girl he’d seen at the fireworks display probably didn’t exist outside his imagination, anyway. She certainly hadn’t put in an appearance in her aunt’s drawing room. That girl had been all polite propriety and butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth missishness. Even when he’d spoken to her directly, he’d gained the impression she wanted to shrink into the sofa cushions and disappear from view. If he’d come across that Miss Underwood at a ball or a supper party, he wouldn’t have spared her a second thought. He certainly wouldn’t have drifted off to sleep with a vision of her, crouching on the ground, holding Mrs Pagett’s hand in his mind. Or gone on to dream about joining her on the ground and giving in to the temptation to run his hand through the rips in her skirts to find the silken skin of her calves.

He mounted the front steps and rapped on the door. Putting this inconvenient fascination for Miss Underwood to bed was what he would accomplish this afternoon. And then he could return to his well-ordered existence where his every move was dictated by duty, honour and reason.

Not emotion or desire.

* * *

‘Here he is!’ Aunt Agnes was practically jumping up and down on the spot. She’d spent all morning deciding what to wear. If there had been time, she would have gone out and purchased an entirely new carriage dress and bonnet. ‘Oh!’ She clapped her hands to her chest. ‘He has come in the most ridiculous vehicle. There can hardly be room for us both in it. I hope he doesn’t intend...’ She whirled round to look at Sofia with narrowed eyes. ‘It is the height of impropriety to go driving, alone, with a single gentleman to whom you are not related.’

‘You had better inform him of that fact when he comes in,’ said Sofia, tongue in cheek.

‘Don’t be ridiculous! As if he needs telling. He must have changed his mind about the outing, that is what it is,’ she said, trotting over to the mirror and fluffing her hair into place. ‘At least he is gracious enough to come and inform us.’ She plopped herself down and arranged her skirts only a moment before Babbage came to announce their visitor.

The Duke strode in on the tail end of the butler’s words. He glanced at Sofia, where she was sitting on the sofa, Snowball next to her with her muzzle on her lap. ‘Good afternoon, ladies,’ he said, bowing to each of them. ‘Are you not ready?’ He shot a rather irritated glance at Sofia. ‘I did specify three o’clock and I do not wish to keep my horses standing.’

‘Oh, but we thought you must have changed your mind,’ said Aunt Agnes.

He whirled on her. ‘Why should you think any such thing? Besides, if I had done so I should have sent a note. Well?’ He turned to Sofia again.

‘I have only to don my pelisse and bonnet,’ she said, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on his and pretending not to notice the frantic, yet furtive, way Aunt Agnes was trying to attract her attention. If she wanted to forbid her from going out with him unchaperoned, then she should jolly well have told him that it was highly improper behaviour the moment he’d suggested it. Sofia had never been invited to go out for a drive with a gentleman to whom she was not related. And she had no intention of letting such a treat slip through her fingers. Hadn’t she promised herself, when Uncle Ned had finally agreed to bring her to the seaside, that she was going to make the most of every opportunity for enjoyment that came her way? And start putting the past behind her?

‘Well, hurry along, then,’ said her means of escaping her aunt and uncle for an hour or so.

Sofia hurried into the hall and into her pelisse and bonnet. Snowball, who recognised these signs of human behaviour as the prelude to going for a walk, ran around and around in circles, almost tripping the Duke when he came into the hallway himself.

‘Here, Snowball,’ said Sofia, bending down to scoop her dog up into her arms. ‘You do not mind me bringing her along, do you?’ Belatedly, she considered that the Duke might not like to have an animal of such dubious heritage perched up on the lap of the lady he was about to parade about the lanes in his curricle. A lady, moreover, who was sporting a rather spectacular black eye.

The Duke looked at the wriggling bundle of fluff in Sofia’s arms, then looked into her face, as though his thoughts were following the same path her own had just wandered down. ‘Not at all,’ he said with chilling politeness. ‘Though would the creature not prefer to take a walk? With a footman?’

‘Oh, I shall take Snowball out again later for exercise,’ she said, airily ignoring his hint. ‘This carriage ride is just an extra treat for her. She absolutely loves carriage rides.’

‘Indeed,’ he said drily, eyeing Babbage in such a way that the butler went and opened the front door for them to exit.

‘Oh, yes, you should have seen her during our trip here,’ she said, making her way down the front steps. ‘She kept her nose to the door the entire time, breathing in all the smells wafting in with her eyes half-shut as though she was in some sort of doggy heaven.’

‘Hmmph. Dogs do tend to experience life through their noses,’ he conceded as he handed her up on to the seat of the curricle. As he went around to the other side to climb in, Sofia put Snowball down right in the middle of the bench seat. The Duke paused in the act of taking his own seat and raised his left eyebrow.

‘So this little bundle of fluff is in reality the chaperon I took such pains to exclude from our outing.’

‘A girl cannot be too careful with her reputation,’ she said, parroting one of her aunt’s most frequent homilies.

‘I have a groom to stand up behind, naturally. However,’ he said, settling into the seat and taking the reins, ‘you are to be commended for not attempting to take advantage of the situation.’

‘Take advantage? Whatever do you mean?’

‘Most females in your position,’ he said, nodding to the groom to let go of the horses’ heads, ‘would be trying to take hold of my arm under the pretence of being afraid of the motion of the vehicle.’

‘We haven’t set out yet,’ she said, as he flicked the reins and set it in motion. ‘That is,’ she hastily amended as the groom leapt nimbly up behind, ‘there is a little rail here by my side which I can hang on to should you prove to be a careless driver.’

Sofia could tell the Duke did not like the implication that she might dislike the manner of his driving by the way his jaw clenched, but fortunately before either of them could pursue that topic any further, Snowball caught sight of a cat sitting on the window ledge of one of the houses they were passing and let out a loud bark.

‘Hush, Snowball,’ said Sofia, tapping the dog’s nose firmly with two fingers to reinforce the command.

The Duke snorted. ‘You cannot expect any self-respecting dog not to bark at a cat.’

‘On the contrary. I have trained Snowball to be silent when required.’ She’d had to. Aunt Agnes had at first objected so strongly to having the animal in the house that she’d spent hours and hours training her dog into total obedience. ‘Now that I have given the command she will not bark again until I give her leave, I promise you.’

‘A remarkable animal, then,’ he said, glancing down at Snowball. ‘A good deal of poodle in the family, I take it?’

‘Yes, I think so. I have to have her trimmed regularly or she becomes completely circular in appearance. Like a snowball on legs, in fact.’

‘Ah, hence the name.’

‘No, when she was a pup, she just looked like a little furry snowball. And it was Christmas. The name just came to me.’

‘Her tail has the look of a spaniel, though.’

‘Yes, her mother was definitely a spaniel. It was the father who...’

Oh, lord, why had she never seen it before? That was why Jack had given her the puppy. Because she was of mixed breed. It had been a cruel joke, referencing Sofia’s own background.

Was that why Aunt Agnes had been so cross with him? It certainly explained why her aunt had not shown any great aversion to Snowball after those first few fraught minutes when she’d scolded Jack for being so thoughtless. Why she’d never once threatened to have the dog destroyed, or sold, no matter how many times Sofia had returned from walks dripping wet or covered in mud. She’d scolded her, yes. Said she despaired of ever making a Proper Lady of her. But never, ever threatened to part her from the pet she’d fallen in love with at first sight.

In rather the same way she’d fallen for Jack.

And later, when he’d told her that he’d taken one look at Springer’s latest litter and thought of her, she’d assumed he’d meant that he’d noticed how lonely and out of place she still felt in England and had wanted to give her something of her very own, to love her and be with her always.

But all the time he’d been making fun of her mixed parentage.

How...beastly of him. How cruel.

And how stupid of her not to have seen it.

The Duke cleared his throat. ‘I did not bring you out here to talk about dogs, however.’

‘No, of course not,’ she said, distractedly running her fingers over Snowball’s crest. In spite of suddenly understanding what Jack had meant the dog to be, she loved her just the same. Snowball was loyal and loving, obedient and clever. ‘Good girl, Snowball,’ she said.

‘Are you feeling quite well? You seem a little distracted.’

Well, it wasn’t every day a girl was on the receiving end of such an epiphany. Not that she was going to let it have the devastating effect upon her that the last one she’d had about Jack had done. No, for this was more in the nature of a deepening of a truth she’d already learned.

That Jack was a vile, vile person. And not the romantic hero of her girlish dreams. At all. Oh, yes, he might have told his sisters not to be so beastly to her whenever he caught them out in some petty act of spite. But she’d been mistaken in thinking his motives were the slightest bit chivalrous. It was far more to do with how much he disliked them.

‘Miss Underwood?’

‘Oh, I beg your pardon. I was wool-gathering.’ On receipt of this admission, the Duke’s lips thinned and his ferocious brows drew down until they almost met one another over the great beak of his nose. Clearly he did not appreciate women wool-gathering when he’d done them the signal honour of taking them up in his curricle. And that after casting aspersions upon his prowess as a driver! ‘That is, I was wondering how best to answer your question, without...that is, I hardly know you.’

‘I do not wish to hear any details of your ailments,’ he snapped.

‘No, I don’t suppose you do.’ After all, nobody else ever did. All she’d had to do that day she’d come home from learning exactly what Jack thought of her was claim to have a headache and feel sick—which was the perfect truth—and they’d left her alone in her room for days.

‘I am assuming that it is on account of your poor health that you did not appear in London this spring.’

‘What? I mean, why should you have thought I would be in London?’

‘To make your debut. I should have thought... I mean, you look to be of an age to make a come-out. And your uncle is the Earl of Tadcaster, is he not?’

‘Yes...’ Though nobody would think so to look at her today, in one of her cousins’ cast-off walking dresses, a bonnet that did nothing to disguise her black eye and a dog of indeterminate heritage sitting at her side. Certainly not the couple of scarlet-jacketed officers who were loitering on the corner where the Duke was slowing down to take the turn down to the seafront.

‘To be honest,’ she said, turning to look at his profile so that she could pretend she hadn’t seen the scornful looks directed at her by those officers, ‘Aunt Agnes did use my poor health as a pretext for not taking me to London this year.’

‘But not former years?’ He glanced down at her, as though assessing her age. ‘You look as though you should have made your debut some time since.’

She gasped at his effrontery.

‘Why has the Countess of Tadcaster not given you a court presentation then? She is surely a most suitable person to do so.’

Had he been investigating her background? Or was he just one of those people who knew the intricate web of families that made up the haut ton so well that the few casual references to her family, made by her uncle and aunt, had been enough to place her exactly?

‘Well, when my father first died, Uncle Barty was a bachelor, so everyone thought it more appropriate for his sister to take me in charge, especially since she already had two daughters.’ She’d heard Uncle Barty say as much to the subaltern whose invidious task it had been to convey her to the head of her family. And heard the subaltern subsequently repeat the message to Aunt Agnes. ‘And then last spring, when I might have made my debut, Lady Tadcaster was...er...in a delicate condition.’