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“Emmy’s going to have a baby?” Nicole jumped up and grabbed Charlotte in a fierce hug. “How above everything wonderful!” Then she pushed away from Charlotte and frowned. “No, wait. That isn’t wonderful. Who will present Lydia and me next spring, when we go to London for the Season?”
“You’re not going to London for the Season, you wretched girl. You’re only sixteen.”
“Seventeen next month,” Nicole reminded her. “Louisa Madison went to London at seventeen for her first Season.”
“Yes, and she came home again three weeks later, humiliated and ostracized because she was so foolish as to allow a half-pay officer to kiss her in Lady Castlereagh’s gardens. Do you want to be quickly married off to the vicar’s third-oldest son?”
“Louisa was always a fool,” Nicole said, shrugging. “I’d never kiss a half-pay officer. Indeed, I shall not even deign to dance with any rank lower than earl.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “I’m sure your brother will be much relieved to hear that. But you’re not going. You’re too young, and there is no one to chaperone you.”
“There’s you,” Nicole said, grinning at Charlotte.
“There most certainly is not me. I’m much too young to be a chaperone, for one thing, and I’d rather be locked up in Bedlam before I’d entertain any thought of attempting to get you to behave for more than five minutes. I mean it, Nicole. No. Stop smiling. Stop looking at me that way. Wait—where are you going? What are you going to do?”
Nicole was already halfway to the door, her unbound hair trailing halfway down her back. “Why,” she said, whirling about to face Charlotte, “I think it should be obvious. I’ve been sitting up here, my every nerve shredded, appalled at what I’ve done. Hoodwinking my own dearest aunt, my own dearest brother. There’s nothing else for it. I must go to him at once, and make a clean breast of my sins.”
“You miserable little—Don’t you dare!”
“But, Charlotte, you must see that it isn’t fair to keep poor Rafe in the dark like this, can’t you? I mean, not that you weren’t most thoroughly in the dark for all these long months. Completely fooled by two young girls scarcely out of the nursery.” She frowned rather comically. “Oh, dear, what will Rafe think of you once he knows?”
“Perhaps I don’t care what he thinks,” Charlotte said, hoping she didn’t sound defensive.
“And as Mrs. Beasley would say, pshaw. Of course you care. Everyone knows you’ve always been half in love with him. Why, you still wear that ratty old scarf of his sometimes. I’ve seen you. Just like something out of a penny press novel, that’s what Mrs. Beasley says.”
Charlotte opened her mouth to protest, but she knew she’d already lost. “Oh, very well. Yes, I might have thought myself in love with him. But that was a long time ago. Now I just don’t want him to think me a complete idiot. What do you want me to do? Because I can’t be your chaperone. Old maid I may be, but you will need someone with much more social consequence than I, and at least twice my knowledge of how you and Lydia should go on. You’re sisters to the duke, remember. I was only one of hundreds of lesser lights, never given a voucher to Almack’s, partaking in only the tamest of gatherings…oh, I can’t believe I’m agreeing to any of this.”
Nicole returned to her dressing table and opened the top middle drawer, extracting a folded paper. “Here. Here’s a listing of all our female relatives. I wrote it out some weeks ago, as it is always wise to be prepared for a last-minute change of plans. Lydia taught me that. At any rate, that’s all that’s left, you know—females. Rafe is the only gentleman among them on our papa’s side of the family. And heaven knows we can’t apply to Mama’s family. They’re all either pockets-to-let or locked up for card sharping.”
“They are not,” Charlotte said, unfolding the paper. “Who told you that?”
“Mama,” Nicole said brightly. “She should know, don’t you think?”
“I suppose,” Charlotte said, reading down the short list of names. “Where did you get this list?”
“I copied it down from the family Bible, in Uncle Charlton’s—that is, Rafe’s study.”
“That may explain it. Margaret, your grandfather’s only sister, lives in Scotland and is sickly by choice. She never travels. I remember Emmaline telling me that when she was preparing the list for the memorial to your uncle and cousins.”
“She isn’t the only name,” Nicole said hopefully.
“As for this second name, Irene Murdoch? Do you by chance recall the embarrassingly rude creature who spent three days here, seated in the main saloon with a constantly refilled dish of sugar comfits in her ample lap, telling all who would listen that she had always favored your late aunt’s garnet brooch and felt certain Emmaline would gift her with it as a remembrance?”
“That sow? That’s Cousin Irene? Oh, no. She won’t do at all.” Nicole leaned closer to look at the list. “Who else is left?”
“Considering the fact that I’m almost certain I was told that your aunt Marion died more than thirty years ago, I would say that leaves—” Charlotte smiled evilly “—only your mama to bring you and Lydia out.”
“Mama!” Nicole’s astonishingly violet eyes all but popped out of her head. “I thought you said we needed someone respectable. As she’s between husbands at the moment, again, she’d probably chase after anyone who looked at either Lydia or me. It would be a disaster.”
“I rather think you’re right,” Charlotte said with some humor. “But there is another answer. As the duke, Rafe now has the responsibility of setting up his own nursery, as the Duke of Warrington and Emmaline are doing. Give the man a year, and he’ll have found himself a fine duchess more than willing to bring you both out, seeing as how any woman with a modicum of brains would be more than anxious to see you and Lydia—mostly you, I expect—gone from Ashurst Hall.”
And then she tried to ignore a slight pang in her chest.
Nicole took the sheet of paper, tearing it nearly in half, and began to pace. “A duchess. Rafe needs a duchess. Yes, of course. And Lydia isn’t quite as ready for her Come-Out as I would like,” she continued, clearly speaking for her own benefit. “I’d marry and she’d be left on the shelf, like poor Charlotte. A good sister wouldn’t allow that, and Lydia would be lost without me…”
Charlotte folded her arms beneath her bosom and tapped the tip of one half boot against the floor, glaring at Nicole. “As I seem to be saying a lot today—I hear you, Nicole.”
“What?” Nicole grinned at her. “Sorry, Charlotte. Wait a moment. What about you? Would you consider marrying Rafe? He isn’t ugly, and he’s very rich. And he seems to like you. And, since you already know Lydia and me, and you’ve admitted you at least used to love him, we wouldn’t have…well, we wouldn’t have to break you in the way we would a stranger.”
Charlotte lowered her gaze to her shoe tops. “You can’t plan someone else’s life like that, Nicole. Rafe will marry where he wants to marry.”
“Why? You weren’t going to. People marry for many reasons. Aunt Emmaline told us that your papa was the one who chose—”
“I’ve changed my mind, Nicole,” Charlotte interrupted quickly, determinedly blinking back threatening tears. “Go tell him. Tell Rafe what you did, make a clean breast of things, even if I have to then tell him that I lied to him, that Emmaline has been gone these six months or more, that I haven’t really taken up residence here as your chaperone, that you hoodwinked me most thoroughly. Tell him all of it.”
Nicole pulled a face. “I said something to upset you, didn’t I? I’m sorry, Charlotte. I’m rude, and selfish, and only ever think of myself. It’s just that it seems you and Rafe would suit, since you already know each other so well. And it would be so simple, you know, since we’re already friends and—and you told him you’re living here with us. That’s what you said downstairs, too, isn’t it?”
Charlotte’s stomach dropped to her toes. “Oh, Lord, I did, didn’t I? How could I have forgotten that lie?”
Nicole shook her finger at Charlotte. “And I suppose you thought it was easy, juggling stories, remembering every innocent little fib? I happen to look upon lying as a talent, one you clearly haven’t mastered. So now what, Charlotte? Do we ask Grayson to send someone to fetch clothing for you? Dinner’s in an hour, and you can’t possibly go down in that frowsy gown.”
“What’s wrong with my gown?” Charlotte asked, looking down at her plain gray round gown of several seasons past.
“Well, my good friend, if you don’t know that, then I agree with you. You cannot be put even nominally in charge of Lydia’s and my new wardrobes when we go to London.”
“I still don’t understand why you think your brother would even consider taking you to London with him.”
“You don’t? We’ll forgo a Season for now, because I am capable of listening to reason. But we must at least travel to the city in the spring with Rafe. Surely you see that? We’ve been locked up here or at Willowbrook for all of our lives. We’ll be seventeen in a few weeks, much too old to be consigned back to the nursery for another year now that we know what it’s like to be set free these past six months or more. Imagine the mischief I will get into if left here to my own devices while Rafe goes to London in the spring.”
Charlotte sighed. “I’d rather contemplate being run down by a speeding mail coach.”
“Exactly! A compromise, Charlotte. You can come along as our friend and very nearly a member of our family. See? I’m more than willing to compromise.”
“You’re walking a very fine line, Nicole,” Charlotte warned her, wearying of the game. “I still could go tell Rafe the truth, and you and Lydia would never get out of this bedchamber, let alone to London.”
Nicole gave her a quick hug. “Please forgive me, I’m so sorry. We shouldn’t argue, not when we’re both determined not to be found out.”
“You’re right, sadly. Which means we have to bribe Grayson if he’s to send someone along to Rose Cottage with me for my belongings so that we can pretend I’ve been living here with you these past weeks. How much do you have in the way of pin money?”
“Me? I spent it all in the village last week. Don’t you remember seeing my new pelisse? But Lydia hoards her allowance like a miser. She must have at least eight pounds in the reticule she has stuffed in her bottom drawer. She had ten, but the pelisse wasn’t the only thing I purchased. There were these lovely yellow kid slippers Mrs. Halbrook assured me came straight from London, and I just had to have them.”
“You borrowed money from your sister? Or did you simply take it?”
“Oh, don’t go all prudish on me.” Nicole smiled. “I’ll return it next quarter and she’ll never know. She’d only waste it all on books anyway.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I know,” Nicole said, hanging her head. “Lydia would have loaned me the two pounds, but somehow it was more delicious to sneak into her room and—well, I’ll never do that again to my own dear twin sister, I promise. I think I got all of the evil and Lydia all of the good. If I’m going to make my debut in Mayfair I must strive to improve myself.”
“Yes, you must,” Charlotte agreed, not holding out much hope for that eventuality. “Beginning bright and early first thing tomorrow morning, I’d say. After you bring me that eight pounds and I go have a quiet chat with Grayson.”
She stepped into the hall five minutes later, the eight pounds in her pocket, and leaned back against the closed door. Was she out of her mind? Only a fool would think she could get away with this charade.
In fact, she had only one thing on her side: Grayson’s disdainful certainty that Rafe was an unacceptable duke. If she approached the butler correctly, let him believe he was pulling one over on his new master? Yes, then Grayson might cooperate.
She’d feel terribly about not going to Rafe with the truth about what his sisters had done, but in aid of what? The man seemed truly out of his depth at the moment, although she was certain he’d grow into his new boots in time. There seemed no good reason to upset him; after all, the twins were fine, their reputations intact, and the house hadn’t burned down around all their ears, or anything.
And telling Rafe meant telling Emmaline, which Charlotte completely refused to do, not with the woman newly married and now expecting a baby.
“Have you convinced yourself?” Charlotte muttered quietly. She decided that she had, and that her greatest motivation wasn’t really the idea that Rafe wouldn’t learn the truth and thereby think her not only a liar but also the biggest imbecile in nature not to have seen through Nicole and Lydia’s lies. Intent on locating Grayson, she headed for the staircase.
She stopped at the head of the stairs, realizing that, below her, the entrance hall was clogged with maids and footmen and cooks and tweenies…and Rafe.
Sinking to her knees so as not to be easily seen, she watched through the balustrades as, accompanied by a starchy Grayson, the new duke—his hands held clasped behind his back, she noticed—walked along the curving line of Ashurst servants, nodding his acceptance of each introduction, each bow, every curtsy.
He looked wonderful in his fine London clothes. His dark hair glistened in the light from the large chandelier, still slightly damp, telling Charlotte that he’d bathed away his travel dust in the time she’d been closeted with Nicole.
She blinked back tears yet again as Rafe came to the end of the line, where the six children of the head cook stood in a descending row. He then accepted a pastry from the youngest, ruffling the lad’s hair before Grayson clapped his hands three times in quick succession, dismissing everyone.
“Thank you, Grayson,” she heard Rafe say once the entrance hall was clear except for two of the footmen who took up their posts at the front door once more, as if expecting the Prince Regent’s coach to come roaring up the drive at any moment.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Grayson said, holding out one white-gloved hand for the small silver plate. “I’ll take that for you, sir.”
“The devil you will. The lad gave it to me, the only person to offer me a morsel of food since I arrived. I’ve allowed you to exercise your spleen, Grayson, as I know how loyal you were to the late duke. But be warned. I will suffer no more insolence from you, or from anyone connected with Ashurst Hall. The staff follows your lead, Grayson, and you are not as irreplaceable as you might believe. I doubt any of them will wish to follow you out the door, if you take my meaning.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Grayson said, bowing. Then he turned on his heel and fairly marched out of the entrance hall, his chin high, his back ramrod straight.
Rafe turned about and looked up at Charlotte, his young, unaffected smile dazzling her. He broke off a bit of the pastry as he said, “That went well, Charlie, don’t you think? I didn’t even need to use the pin.”
Before she could get to her feet, or form an answer, he’d popped the bit of pastry into his mouth and headed for the main saloon.
Charlotte stayed where she was, not yet trusting her legs to hold her if she attempted to stand. What was it Nicole had said to her?
Oh, yes. What about you? Would you consider marrying Rafe? He isn’t ugly, and he’s very rich. And he seems to like you.
“I like him, too,” Charlotte whispered as she cooled one hot cheek against the wrought iron of the staircase. “Very much.”
Chapter Four
“I HOPE YOU HAD a restful night,” Rafe said as he approached his friend’s bed, smiling as Phineas employed a scissors, neatly trimming Fitz’s light brown beard. “How’s the leg?”
Phineas made one last snip-snip, carefully folded up the towel he’d laid on Fitz’s chest, and stood clear. “He’ll tell you it’s fine, Your Grace, but the servant assigned to sleep in the dressing room told me he moaned in his sleep on and off all the night long.”
“And did he ask you, Phineas?” Fitz said, throwing out his arm, which the small man easily evaded. “I’m fine, Rafe. So the leg got jostled a bit in the coach. The bones are nicely settled again. I want my crutches.”
“You can want them all you wish, but you can’t have them,” Rafe told him, gingerly sitting down on the side of the wide bed. “And the fever, Phineas?”
“All but gone this morning, Your Grace. We removed the splint, as the surgeon ordered, thinking that should ease him some. Does it ease you some, Captain?”
“Go hang yourself,” Fitz muttered without rancor, reaching down to rub at his left thigh. “If I was a horse you would have ordered me shot, and I begin to think you would have been doing me a favor. How long are you planning to keep me locked away up here?”
“Two months, I believe I was told,” Rafe said, genuinely sorry for his friend. “We’ll have to find something to amuse you.”
“Good. I’ll take that pretty little redheaded maid who came in this morning to replenish the fire, thank you.”
Rafe smiled. “Down but not out, are you, Fitz?” He waited until Phineas had departed the room, and then said, “In truth, I wish you could be downstairs with me. I met my sisters yesterday.”
“That all sounds ominous. Are they horse-faced?”
“Hardly. And I’m told chastity belts are no longer acceptable garb for young unmarried sisters, more’s the pity. I can only thank God Charlie was here to steer me through my first encounter. I’ve faced the enemy with less trepidation.”
“Ah, yes, the fetching Miss Charlotte,” Fitz said, stroking his short beard. “She seemed sorry for me. Do you think that sympathy would extend to visiting with this poor soldier, perhaps reading poetry to him?”
Rafe frowned. “She is pretty, isn’t she? It’s strange. I don’t remember Charlie as pretty. I remember her as a thorn in my side, a perpetual pest. And as my friend. Sometimes the only friend I had here at Ashurst Hall.”
Fitz’s grin split his beard. “Well then, your friend can come pest me any time she likes.”
“Only here the one night, and already you have designs on the ladies?” Rafe hoped his voice sounded light, unconcerned.
He shouldn’t have bothered to try to dissemble.
“Staked her out for yourself, have you?”
“No,” Rafe said quickly. Too quickly? “You really can be an annoying bastard, do you know that?”
“I do, and pride myself on it,” Fitz said rather smugly. “I also pride myself on being able to take a hint, so I’ll stop teasing you now. Still, if you won’t send Charlotte to me, how about you order one of your new servants to round up some books I can read to pass the time? Better yet, someone to read them to me? The sound of Charlotte’s lovely voice washing over me as I lie on my sickbed, for instance, my eyes closed in bliss, her every word soothing my pain—Your late uncle did own books, didn’t he?”
“Thousands of them, yes. I don’t ever remember anyone in the household reading them, however. But I can’t promise you that Charlie would be agreeable. Besides, you’re strong enough to hold a book and read it yourself.” Rafe got up from the bed, alarmed to see his friend wince at the movement of the mattress. “Although perhaps tomorrow would be soon enough?”
“Damn it, I suppose so,” Fitz muttered, once again rubbing his thigh. “You didn’t tell anyone how this happened, did you? Bad enough I did it, without you running through the halls like the town crier, telling everyone about your clumsy oaf of a friend.”
“Only Charlie. Sorry, Fitz. But she won’t tell anyone if I ask her not to. Feel free to make up whatever heroic, outlandish story you want.”
“The runaway cart doesn’t impress you?”
“Actually, I was thinking more of the Frenchmen we shooed away from Elba the week before we departed for home.”
“Come to rescue their emperor,” Fitz said, nodding. “But it wasn’t me who saw them at the tavern and got suspicious. I never saw more than their backs as we chased them to their longboat. No, that’s your story, my friend, as it was you who was nearly shot and not me, although I thank you for offering it to me. I’ll think of something else, something equally heroic. Now go away, if you please. This injured soldier needs his rest.”
Rafe left the bedchamber reluctantly, knowing he’d delayed facing his first full day as duke in residence as long as possible.
It was November. What duties did a duke have in November? When he wasn’t away in London or at some house party or other, his uncle had always been riding out somewhere or another with his chief steward…That was it, he’d find his chief steward, and ride out with him.
Having decided on a plan, Rafe returned to his massive chambers to find Phineas already laying out his riding clothes in the dressing room.
“Ah, good, I don’t have to go calling through this large pile, chasing you down. Miss Seavers says for you to hurry and get changed, Your Grace. And I’ve sewn and brushed your riding cloak for you, not that I can find that lovely new beaver anywhere. Your Miss Seavers said she thought she might be able to locate it, as you’ll need something on your head with the chill being so in the air, not that I know where you’re off to. Your Miss Seavers said something about showing your pretty face somewhere?”
“Oh, she said all that, did she,” Rafe said, feeling an unreasonable reluctance to continue doing as Charlie dictated. Even if she was right, damn it. “She’s not my Miss Seavers, Phineas.And perhaps I don’t want to show my—Ah, hell’s bells, Phineas, help me out of this jacket.”
