The Runaway Duchess (3 page)

 “Well,”
Vera began after a long pause, “the thing of it is I used to work for the duke
 ‘till I was let go ‘fer stealing silver. I didn’t do it, you know,” she
said sulkily. “I ain’t never stole no silver.”

“I
believe you,” Charlotte lied. “Do go on.”

“I
could tell you the short version for five, or the long one ‘fer ten.”

“
Vera
.”
Visibly agitated now, Tabitha slapped her palm down hard enough on the table to
cause the tea cups to rattle in their saucers. “You agreed before coming here
that you would not ask—”

“It
is quite all right,” Charlotte interrupted. “Ten shillings for the entire
story, did you say?” She was loathe to give the ill mannered woman a farthing,
but if it meant hearing a story she could use to change her mother’s mind about
the duke she would gladly pay Vera’s price ten times over. “Here,” she said,
digging through the reticule she had slung over one shoulder and procuring a
fistful of silver coins. “That should cover what Tabitha owes you as well.”

Her
dark eyes gleaming will ill-disguised greed, Vera scooped the coins up and
slipped them quick as a wink into her beaded purse. “Now, where was I?”

“The
duke fired you,” Charlotte prompted.

Before
Vera could begin again, the tarts arrived on a white porcelain plate edged with
violets. Snagging the largest one, Vera took a considerable bite and, ignoring
both the crumbs on her face and the food she was still chewing, started from
where she left off. “As I was sayin’, I used to work fer the duke. I lived
right in his house, I did. I started as a scullery maid, but I always had a
talent with hair, ye see, and his wife made me her personal lady’s maid.” Her
chest swelled with pride. “I was the maid of a duchess, I was.”

“His
first wife or his second?” Charlotte queried. Beneath the table her fingers
curled into fists of excitement. This was exactly what she needed. First hand
information as to how the duke’s two wives had lived – and died.

Gossip
said the first expired after an unfortunate riding accident, while the details
surrounding the latter duchess’s death were a bit murkier. Some people claimed
she was always in poor health, while others whispered foul play was involved.
Whatever the truth the duke had never been brought to stand before the House of
Lords, and no actions were ever taken.

“The
first one. Allison, ‘er name was. She was a strong willed gel. Always arguing
with the duke about this and that. Why, ye could hear ‘em shouting clear across
the house sometimes. Then one day Lady Allison started acting strange like. She
turned real quiet and never raised her voice to the duke again, even when he
deserved it which he always did, bleedin’ cur that he was.”

“And
the accident?” Charlotte asked.

A
flicker of fear passed over Vera’s face and for the first time since she sat
down she looked away. “I don’t know about none of that,” she mumbled. “Lady
Allison got up early one morning to go riding in the park. She told me not to
tell anyone, so I didn’t. I pretended like I ain’t even seen her sneaking out
of the house with a bag of her favorite jewelry.”

“She
was going to run away. His first wife, she was going to leave him,” Charlotte
guessed. And the poor woman ended up with a broken neck instead. Coincidence?
She rather thought not. “The second duchess? Lady Patricia, wasn’t it?”

“Aye.”
Vera looked up. “Patty, she said to call her. She was a right thin slip of a
girl. Barely said boo to anybody. The duke, he had ‘er wedded and bedded before
her seventeenth birthday. He liked breaking their spirits, he did. It was a
game for ‘im. The more they resisted, the longer he drew it out, like a cat
toyin’ with a mouse.”

Disgust
at the duke and sympathy for his child bride filled Charlotte in equal
measures. The poor girl had barely been out of the school room and ill equipped
to deal with a man twice her age. No doubt her parents had been ecstatic about
the marriage up until the point their daughter died. If memory served and the
gossip was even half true, Patricia’s remaining family received a sizable
inheritance from an anonymous benefactor a week after their daughter’s death.
It was enough to allow them to settle in the country permanently, which they
did with all haste, and no one had heard from them since.

“Tell
her what they looked like,” Tabitha said. “Tell her, Vera. Tell her what you
told me.”

Vera
finished her pastry and slowly licked her fingers clean one by one. “I’m
gettin’ around to it. Don’t get your knickers in a twist. As I was about to
say” – she narrowed her eyes at her sister – “even though the first duchess and
the second were different as night and day in the way they behaved, they could
have been sisters.”

A
feeling of trickling unease slithered down between Charlotte’s shoulder blades.
She straightened in her chair, resting the soles of her ankle boots flat on the
floor and bringing her hands up from underneath the table and across her chest
in an unconsciously protective gesture. “What… What…” Her tongue was dry and
stuck to the roof of her mouth. She cleared her throat once, twice, and tried
again. “What did they look like?”

Vera
raised one scrawny eyebrow. “Why, they looked jest like you, Lady Charlotte.
Red hair and all.”

CHAPTER THREE

Charlotte
feared she was going to be sick.

She
left Twinings in a dizzying blur, standing up from the table so fast she sent
two teacups crashing to the floor. As they lay broken in a dozen different
pieces Charlotte realized that was how she felt. Broken and shattered and
horribly, horribly frightened.

Fear
was a new concept for the twenty-one-year-old. She may have led a mundane life,
but she had always felt safe and secure and, most importantly, in charge of her
own destiny. Now it felt like everything was beyond her control. Her mother was
blinded to the duke’s faults and determined to make her daughter a duchess by
any means necessary, whether she wanted to be one or not. On some level
Charlotte knew Bettina was only doing what she thought was best, but the idea
that she could be forced into a marriage not of her own choosing was
horrifying.

Oh,
when it came right down to it she supposed she could always refuse to say the
vows. As she had told her mother the day before it wasn’t the Dark Ages, after
all. Women did have some choice in who they married, although the consequences
of making the
wrong
choice were dire indeed.

Bettina
had yet to come right out and say it, but Charlotte would not put it past her
mother to cut her off completely if she refused to wed the Duke of Tarrow. Her
father would never have allowed it, but being dead certainly put a damper on
one’s ability to control things. When he fell ill with fever seven years ago he
made certain his wife and daughter would be well provided for and they had
never wanted for anything. Charlotte knew in her heart he never would have
wanted his beloved daughter to marry someone she did not love, and she missed
him now more than ever before.

“What
happened?” Dianna demanded the moment Charlotte was in the carriage and the
door was shut behind her. “You look horrible. What did your maid say?”

Taking
a deep breath, Charlotte repeated everything Vera had told her nearly word for
word. When she was finished Abigail sniffed and returned to reading her book.
Dianna’s reaction was a bit more ill contained.

“What
a horrid man!” she exclaimed. Color mottled her cheeks and her eyes flashed a
dark, stormy shade of blue. “You cannot marry him. I forbid it.”

“If
only it were that simple.” Charlotte slumped back into her seat as the carriage
jolted forward and closed her eyes. She felt Dianna pat her knee, and attempted
a smile that fell flat on her lips. “There is no proof, but I know he is
somehow responsible for the deaths of his first two wives. I know it. I’m
afraid,” she confessed in a soft voice meant for her friend’s ears only. “I’m
afraid of him, Di.”

“I
would be as well. Surely if you told your mother…”

“I
cannot. She will want to know where I received my information and if I reveal
Tabitha’s name she will surely fire her.” It was a realization Charlotte had come to the moment she left the tea shop.

The
only thing Bettina disliked more than her daughter’s rebellious nature was
gossip, and Charlotte knew that is all her mother would claim it was: nasty,
ill-gotten gossip by a maid who had nothing better to do than spread lies.
Tabitha would be let go on the spot and Charlotte would be no further from
breaking her engagement to the duke than she had been before. “The announcement
was printed in the papers this morning, you know.”

“I
know,” Dianna said solemnly.

“Di,
what am I going to
do
?”

Unaccustomed
to the feeling of helplessness that pushed down on her shoulders like a heavy
cloak, Charlotte opened her eyes and turned her gaze to the window. London
rushed by a blur of color and noise, an ever changing beast of epic proportions
that cared little for the woes of one troubled woman.

“We
will come up with something.” Dianna’s tone rang with confidence, and Charlotte
turned her head to smile gratefully at her friend.

“You
sound so positive.”

“Because
I am. This is not how your story ends, Charlotte. The princess never really has
to marry the ogre, she only
thinks
she has to. That way her prince
charming has something to rescue her from.”

“I
would much rather rescue myself,” Charlotte decided after she thought about it
for a moment. “It is much more efficient that way.”

Dianna,
who was first and foremost a romantic, gave a gentle shrug. “Perhaps for you.
Either way, we
will
come up with something. You will not have to marry
the duke. I swear it.”

Charlotte
only hoped it was one promise Dianna would be able to keep.

The
next evening marked the third official event of the Season. It was an exclusive
affair that required a hand written invitation from the hostess herself, an
invitation which Bettina had (unfortunately) been able to procure. It seemed
there was nothing off limits when one was engaged to a duke, and Lady
Haversham’s ball was no exception.

Having
always disliked the forced politeness, aimless chatter, and rigidity of balls
(not to mention having to remember a dozen different steps) Charlotte was not
looking forward to this one. The only highlight she could see was that the duke
would not be in attendance. He was suffering from a head cold and the rain that
had plagued the city for most of the day would be keeping him inside.

He
wrote as much in a letter that had been delivered to the Vanderley town house
early that morning. A letter he signed – Charlotte cringed to think of it now –
‘
yours in everlasting love, Stanley
’.

The
fact that he had begun using his Christian name in their correspondence was not
a good sign. It implied a sense of familiarity that most certainly did not
exist between the two of them, and Charlotte made it a point to sign her own
return letter with a very formal and impersonal ‘
Lady Vanderley
’.

She
had not wanted to write back at all, but her mother had been insistent and
rather than start off the day with yet another argument she reluctantly agreed.

“Manners,”
Bettina had harped as she stood over Charlotte’s shoulder and watched her write
her reply word for painstaking word. “Remember your manners, dear. No one likes
a rude duchess.”

“I
am not a duchess,” Charlotte pointed out, waving the quill in the air and
causing Bettina to back away for fear of being splattered with ink, “nor will I
ever be one.”

Her
mother had not deigned a reply, which only made it all the more frustrating.
How could she argue her point when Bettina refused to argue? It was quite the conundrum;
one she was no closer to solving than she had been the day before.

At
least
, Charlotte thought with a sigh as she waited patiently inside the
Haversham’s receiving parlor to be announced,
I will not have to worry about
running across the duke tonight
.

Lord
and Lady Haversham were top notch quality amidst the
ton
and their ball,
held annually in their own private residence, was one of the most sought after
events of the season.

Tonight
was the first time Charlotte had ever been inside the elegant mansion, and as
she shuffled forward behind a half dozen over young women waiting to be let
into the main ballroom she let her gaze wander around the parlor.

It
was clear no expense had been spared when Lady Haversham furnished her home.
Matching rosewood tables gleamed beneath the flickering light cast down by not
one, but two chandeliers. The walls were covered in the finest silk and
paintings framed in gold hung at eye level depicting various hunting scenes. A
chaise lounge upholstered in sumptuous red velvet looked so comfortable
Charlotte was of half a mind to curl up on it and take a nap, but at that very
moment the line began to shuffle forward again and she was forced to move along
with it or else risk having her shoulder pulled from its socket.

“Must
you hold me so tightly?” she hissed to her mother. “I am not going to bolt, you
know.”

“One
never knows with you,” Bettina replied, speaking through a feigned smile she
applied to her face as carefully as she did her powders and creams. “That is
the problem.”

Arm
in arm mother and daughter strolled in seemingly perfect harmony through the
parlor and into the grandiose ballroom. Charlotte did not even bother to count
the number of chandeliers hanging from
this
ceiling.

“Your
invitation cards, if you please.” A short, portly butler with thinning hair
stopped them under the archway and held out a gloved hand.

Charlotte
reached automatically for the reticule she always carried, but her fingers
closed around only soft muslin. Of course. When one dressed formally one did
not wear a purse for fear of running the lines of the gown. Quite impractical,
really, but there it was.

Her
attire for the evening was a deceptively simple creation that highlighted her
best features: namely, her fiery red hair and hazel eyes. It was an empire
waist design that gathered tightly beneath her breasts before falling away into
a soft, shimmering skirt of ivory spun through with gold. Matching thread,
slightly wider and studier in design, held her hair back from her face in an intricate
display of curls that had taken Tabitha nearly two hours to fashion. She wore
no jewelry save a pair of emerald earrings that swung gently with every step
she took and a matching bracelet.

“Here,”
Bettina said, releasing her death grip on Charlotte’s arm in order to thrust
two cream colored envelopes at the butler.

Sensing
an opportunity to establish a bit of temporary peace between them before they
descended into the ballroom, Charlotte leaned in close while the butler
searched for their names on an impressively long ledger.

“Mama,
you look very pretty tonight,” she praised with a smile.

It
was true.

Dressed
in a gown of dark blue, Bettina looked positively regal with her auburn hair
swept back in a twist and a necklace comprised of heart shaped sapphires and
diamonds at her throat. The jewels glittered like ice beneath the becoming glow
of the candle light, highlighting a roses and cream complexion she guarded more
fiercely than any gem in her possession.

Charlotte’s
mother had aged as all noblewomen wished to: softly and gradually, with only a
faint set of wrinkles at her eyes and mouth to indicate she was no longer in
the full bloom of youth. The streaks of gray in her hair she disguised with
cinnamon; a natural home remedy only the wealthy could afford as the sweet
smelling spice was a luxury when used in pies and pastries, let alone for
beauty.

Unfortunately,
softness on the outside did not always translate to softness on the inside and
there was a hard edge in Bettina’s voice when she said, “You are slouching,
Charlotte. Straighten up. I knew we should have gone with the smaller corset.
Even though the duke is not in attendance tonight you still represent him.
Remember, all eyes will be on you tonight.”

“Will
they be on me, Mother? I wonder why that is. Could it be because I am to marry
a duke, or is it because I am marrying a man three times my age?”

Bettina’s
eyebrows snapped together. “I do not approve of your tone.”

“And
I do not approve of—”

“Now
announcing Lady Bettina Vanderley and her daughter, Lady Charlotte!” The
butler’s deep voice carried easily across the ballroom, effectively cutting off
Charlotte mid-sentence and causing two dozen heads to swivel in their
direction.

“Smile,”
Bettina demanded. Her fingers closed like dagger tipped claws around
Charlotte’s wrist, leaving her no choice but to walk directly into the hellish
melee of tittering ladies, oversized gowns, and lewdly staring gentlemen.

Within
moments they were surrounded and in an act of sheer desperation Charlotte
accepted the first dance that was offered to her in order to escape the
congratulations and well wishes that were tumbling from everyone’s lips.

She
had hoped the betrothal announcement would have gone unnoticed, at least for a
few more days. She should have known better. Even one person reading of her
impending nuptials to the duke would have been enough to flame the fires of
gossip. There were no secrets amidst the nobility, and Charlotte inwardly
cursed her mother for allowing the announcement to be printed with neither her
knowledge or permission. Now everyone would think she
wanted
to marry
Crane, a falsity she could hardly deny in a room filled shoulder to shoulder
with her peers.

One
did not simply break an engagement to a duke, especially one as powerful as Crane.
To do so would cause a scandal of outlandish proportions she would not soon
recover from, and while she was certainly not above doing such a thing if it
would ensure her freedom, she would rather save ruining her name as a last
resort.

“I
hear you are to marry the Duke of Tarrow,” her dance partner said.

Realizing
she did not even know the name of the man she was waltzing with, Charlotte
adopted a pretty smile and batted her lashes, two things which always seemed to
ensure the conversation would stay light and not delve into personal matters
she had no intention of discussing with anyone, let alone a perfect stranger.
“Did you? How lovely. Are you enjoying the ball thus far?”

Unfortunately,
her partner was not easily swayed off topic. “Are you implying you are not
engaged?” he persisted, his brown eyes filling with undisguised hope even as
the hand he had resting lightly on her shoulder dropped a few inches to linger
noticeably closer to the curve of her spine.

He
was handsome, Charlotte supposed, if one liked men who reminded them of basset
hounds. Still, even with his drooping bottom lip and thick mop of hair he
remained a far better prospect for marriage than her current fiancée, and her
smile slowly faded as they took a second turn around the room.