How to Tame Your Duke (6 page)

And his eyes. Ashland angled his head, watching the two of them. Grimsby was explaining some point of Latin conjugation to Freddie’s bored and sloping body, and his blue eyes narrowed with seriousness, causing a few lines to invade the skin between his eyebrows. An old soul, Ashland’s mother would have said, nodding her head. Old and wise.

Again, Ashland thought of Grimsby in the taproom last night, brandishing his chicken leg, face ablaze with determination.

Grimsby, straightening his lapels a moment ago, as Ashland observed them noiselessly from the doorway. Speaking in his sturdy voice:
Then she is a fool.

An older fellow, Freddie’s last tutor. Seventy at least, with thinning hair and a querulous tone, complaining about Frederick’s lack of attention here and Frederick’s lack of discipline there.
I cannot be expected
and
these conditions
and that sort of thing.

Ashland adjusted his arms at his chest, keeping his empty cuff hidden, relieving the slight pressure on the stump from his opposite forearm. Grimsby’s voice was low, a bit gruff, almost intentionally so, as if he were making up for his lack of years with a manufactured resonance. Determination, patience, intelligence. This young man was nothing like the other tutors, who had left after two days, a week, three weeks, fed up with Freddie’s quicksilver brilliance and the incessant howling bleakness of the landscape.

Which begged the question: Why had Olympia sent Grimsby to Ashland Abbey, instead of putting the young fellow to use himself?

Olympia, after all, did nothing without reason.

Ashland rose abruptly. “Thank you, Mr. Grimsby,” he said. “I shall leave the two of you in peace.”

He walked from the room and back down the stairs to his private study. He had a great deal of estate business to work through before venturing out tonight.

B
y afternoon, Freddie’s restless body was nearly bursting through the walls of the schoolroom, and Emilie, sensing opportunity, prescribed a spell of outdoor exercise. A message was sent down to the stables, and in short order they were trotting from the stable courtyard, wrapped up against the weather in coats and woolen caps.

“You ride well,” said Freddie, sounding rather shocked.

“Of course I ride well. I’ve ridden nearly every day of my life.” Emilie kept her head rigid as she said this, but the remark warmed her innards. True, she had begun riding horses nearly as early as she could walk, but she’d only ridden astride for those two preparatory months at the Duke of Olympia’s remote Devon estate. Even now, the leather felt odd and rather chafing along her inner thighs, though she liked the intimate feel of the horse’s body moving between them. She felt closer, more connected to the animal’s mind and motion.

“Well, it’s a good thing,” Freddie said. He motioned with his riding crop at the swilling grass around them. “Riding’s about the only thing doing around here, without going into town.”

“Where’s town?”

Freddie pointed. “About four miles in that direction. You come to a track, after a bit. Then there’s the Anvil, which of course you know from last night’s doings, and then the railway station, which you know as well, and then there’s the town proper.” He sighed. “Not much to that, either. Dull factory, turning out crockery, and not even any discontented workers to liven things up since Pater took it over a decade ago. Everybody’s so happy, you’d think they were piping in opiates to the factory floor.”

“And that’s all? The factory?”

“No, no. Surely you’ve heard of the Ashland Spa Hotel? No? Dashed fine hot springs, which Pater’s turned into a proper health resort, a mile or so out of town. Then there’s shops, smiths, that sort of thing. Burghers strolling about like sheep.” Freddie stifled a yawn into his sleeve. The chestnut gelding beneath him jigged with surprise. “Hardly a decent-looking girl among them, of course. I daresay it’s the wind that does it.”

Ashland Spa. A proper hotel, a mile or so out of town.

Clouds were scudding by, each one darker than the next. Emilie glanced up at the sky and back down to the beaten grass before her. “Do you mind if we ride in? I confess I’ve rather a curiosity.”

“Ah! Surveying the territory for your weekly half day, eh?”

“Something like that.” Emilie kept her voice even.

“Tally-ho, then.” Freddie nudged his chestnut to the left.

Freddie was right; the town was unremarkable, an English village turned factory burg, the jumble of old half-timbered buildings at its heart surrounded by orderly rows of identical two-over-two workers’ houses with well-kept gardens the approximate size of pocket handkerchiefs. A packet of rain hit Emilie’s cheek just as they trotted through the outskirts. Freddie slowed his horse to a walk and peered at the sky. “Blast,” he said. “We can turn back, if you like. Stop at the Anvil and wait it out.”

“Surely you’re made of sturdier stuff than that, your lordship.” Emilie tucked the brim of her cap downward.

“Hell. You’re
that
sort, are you?” Freddie hunched his bony shoulders and heaved a melancholy sigh.

Well, she was, after all. Emilie never had gone in much for the pomp and circumstance of her earlier life, which Stefanie found such fun and which Luisa performed with such stately grace. Emilie had always preferred curling up in an alcove with a book, or else riding across the soggy fields of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof on her horse. The worse the weather, the better: On a fine day the villagers would be out, bowing and scraping at her approach, and she’d have to straighten her back and nod regally, and her thoughts would fall back into conventional lines. No more adventure and scandal running riot in her head.

Emilie peered out into the gathering drizzle, at the townspeople pulling out umbrellas or else dashing for cover, and without warning, the Duke of Ashland’s words echoed back in her head.
An absolute ruler, a despot, attempts to rearrange the succession to suit his own interests, to prevent the natural growth of a democratic form of law . . .

Easy for an Englishman to say, of course. Nobody in Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof had ever thought of democratic rule. What would the villagers do with the vote, if they had it? Papa had ruled so benignly, so benevolently. The poor had been taken care of. The wealthy had paid their taxes. The middling classes had prospered and sent their sons to school. The winds of change blowing over much of Europe had left the little principality untouched.

The assassin’s bullet had come out of the blue, a shock to Emilie’s own heart.

Her fingers went cold under her gloves. She pushed the thought away, as she usually did, but she could not push away its physical effects. The horse sensed her agitation, the clenching of her hands about the reins, and tossed his head.

They hadn’t let her see Papa’s body, when they brought it back. Luisa had gone in, white-faced, and confirmed the death of their father. And Peter, of course. Poor dear Peter, childhood friend, heir to the neighboring province of Baden-Cherrypit. Stefanie had snuck in later, before they had prepared the bodies, and said that Peter had been struck in the neck, and that his dead flesh was as white as a sheet. Had bled out, probably, into the fallen October leaves of the Schweinwald.

The horse jigged; Emilie cursed and put him right. “I say, Grimsby,” called Freddie, forgetting the
Mr.
in his damp distress, “what are you about? Can’t we turn back and have a pint at the Anvil instead?”

“I’ve a great curiosity to see this spa of yours,” Emilie said, over her shoulder.

“Bother the bloody spa!”

Emilie kept riding, down the high street, taking careful note of the post office at the corner of Baker’s Lane. A hostelry stood nearby; that might be of use.

But the spa, the hotel, with a variety of visitors coming and going! A place where strangers were expected and welcome, where private rooms might be had; a place easily found and yet outside of the main part of town.

It seemed ideal.

The rain began to pound her hat in earnest.

“Look here, Grimsby!” Freddie was growing petulant. “You can’t mean to go on in this! It’s three o’clock in the afternoon, we’ll be missing our tea, and in a moment my coat will have bloody well soaked through!”

“You must learn fortitude, Lord Silverton.”

“I have plenty of damned fortitude, Grimsby!”

“
Mr.
Grimsby,” said Emilie, “and your language is reprehensible in a boy of your years. I must ask you to exercise a little more ingenuity.”

“How’s this for ingenuity,
Mr.
Grimsby: We’re missing our lessons.”

Emilie looked back in surprise. If Freddie was choosing schoolwork over shirking, he must be in sorry straits indeed.

Poor Freddie. He
was
rather bedraggled. His cap dripped with rain, and his shoulders were soaked. Moreover, he had inexplicably gone out without his gloves, and his hands had taken on a rather alarming blue cast. With his bony frame and his brown tweeds, he looked like an exceptionally wet insect.

Emilie let out a long breath, cast her eyes longingly up the road toward the beckoning promise of Ashland Spa Hotel, and turned her horse around. “Very well,” she said. “But I must call in at the post office.”

*   *   *

T
he dainty clock above the mantel—Isabelle’s favorite, a wedding gift—was chiming four o’clock by the time Ashland laid down his pen, squared his papers, and rose from the chair in his study to join his waiting valet upstairs.

“It’s come on to rain, sir,” his valet said quietly, helping him into a coat of silken superfine wool.

“Then I shall require a mackintosh, of course,” Ashland said. He turned to the mirror above the washstand and surveyed himself. The mask had come a little askew during his shaving; he straightened it, adjusted his necktie. His short white hair was smoothed neatly with a touch of pomade.

Not that it mattered, really, but he felt he owed the woman that much.

Wilkins came up behind him with the mackintosh. He shrugged himself into it and allowed Wilkins to handle the buttons. His own fingers were shaking slightly. Hat, settled snugly into his brow; glove, fitted to his left hand like a . . . well, like a glove. That was better. Secure, well covered. The breath eased from his lungs.

“Thank you, Wilkins,” Ashland said. “No need to wait up.”

“Of course, sir.”

Ashland descended the stairs and ducked through the door, opened at the last well-timed instant by an impassive footman. Outside in the drizzle, a groom stood holding his horse. The gray November horizon was already darkening. “There’s a lad,” Ashland said tenderly, rubbing Wellington’s muzzle, taking the reins. “Sorry about the rain, old man. We’ll have to bear on like troupers.”

He nodded to the groom, swung into the saddle, and made off along the four soggy miles to town.

*   *   *

T
he letter burned through the inner pocket of Emilie’s jacket, right against her heart. She couldn’t read it here, of course, with the rain filling the air in front of a curious Freddie. She would have to wait for the security of her room.

“Couldn’t you have posted your note from the house?” said Freddie. “I’m sure Pater would have franked it for you.”

“Of course. I shall remember that next time.”

The rain couldn’t decide how it wanted to settle: one moment mist, the next drizzle, and back to mist again. Emilie kept her shoulders straight, her back straight. She peered under the brim of her hat at the track ahead and recognized the Anvil, hunched by the side of the road, looking even more ramshackle than it had by night. A few lanterns had already been lit on the eaves, and a pair of men were sliding drunkenly off their horses in the courtyard.

“Only a pint, Mr. Grimsby. You can’t say no,” said Freddie, casting a longing glance.

“I can and I do. There will be nice hot tea waiting for us in the schoolroom when we return.”

“The schoolroom,” Freddie said, as he might say
the army latrine
, and then, “What ho! It’s Pater, by God.”

“Language, your lordship,” said Emilie, but her blood was already singing, her eyes already peering through the gloaming ahead. The swift physical reaction shocked her.

Freddie was not mistaken. There
was
no mistaking the figure ahead, tall and resolute atop a magnificent dark horse, his left hand on the reins and his other arm resting on his thigh.

How does he manage?
Emilie wanted to ask, but she bit the words back and concentrated instead on calming the skip of her heart, the flush in her cheeks. This was ridiculous. She was the daughter of a prince. She had met the Kaiser more than once. She was accustomed to powerful men. She could not possibly be nervous at meeting a mere English duke on a rain-dashed Yorkshire road. She of all people knew that princes and dukes were simply men, made of clay, requiring food and drink and rest, subject to wind after ingesting an excess of cabbage.

Perhaps because he was her employer. That would account for this shortening of breath. He held an absolute power over her fate at the moment, more than any human being had before. No wonder her senses were so wary, so filled with every detail of him.

“Pater!” Freddie hailed cheerfully, as the horses drew near.

The Duke of Ashland pulled up. “What the devil are you two doing here, on such a night?”

“Language, Pater! Mr. Grimsby’s frightfully strict about it. It’s hardly night, though, is it? Not even teatime.”

“It grows dark early in November, as you very well know, and Mr. Grimsby is unfamiliar with the area.” Ashland took in Emilie with a single enveloping glance, and then returned to his son.

“But
I’m
familiar with the area. I know every blade of grass between here and Ashland Spa. Daresay I could find the house blindfolded on a windy night. In fact, I believe I
have
, once or twice.” Freddie laughed. “I take it you’re bound for your own amusement this evening? Fourth Tuesday of the month, isn’t it?” He laughed again. “You’re like clockwork, Pater.”

Ashland was frowning. His cheeks were damp with rain and slightly pink from cold and exercise. The color rather became him. “See that you bring Mr. Grimsby straight home. None of your tricks, do you hear me? I shall expect a report from Simpson.”

The dark horse danced underneath him, either from eagerness to move on or from some agitation communicating itself through his master. His ears had swiveled backward, trained on Ashland.

“That would be a great deal more convincing, Pater, if you weren’t off on your own lark. But never fear! I shall escort Mr. Grimsby home without incident, I promise. Virtue quite intact. Shall we leave the lights on for you, or do you plan to stop the night this time?”

“Don’t be impertinent,” said Ashland. He urged his horse forward. “I shall expect you to attend Mr. Grimsby in the schoolroom at nine tomorrow.”

“Have a smashing evening, Pater!” Freddie called back, laughing.

The horses’ hooves rattled against the wet stones on the track. Emilie waited until the sound of the duke’s horse faded into the fog behind them, and said quietly, “You should not speak to your father with such disrespect.”