What the Duke Wants (3 page)

Mindful not to betray her internal thoughts, Grace said, “I think perhaps your mother and father do not want to take any chances that His Grace might be offended during his stay. It is too important to them and your sister that he is happy during this visit.”

Grace paused to give Adelaide a moment to think about that, then added gently, “In light of that sentiment, dear, I think it best if you head back to the house and allow your nurse to truss you up in your finery. It will only be for a short time and you do want to make a good impression when you meet His Grace for the first time.”

“But you said…”

Grace laughed. Adelaide was a clever child.

“I know, I know—he shouldn’t be impressed by how expensively turned out you are, but you also don’t want him to see your bare feet and dirt smudged knees and get the wrong notion, now do you? You rather do look like a stray waif at present…though an adorable one, to be sure.”

“Well, I don’t want him to think I’m not open to play, either. What if he thinks I’m too stuffy, all dolled up, and not at’all a fine candidate for a sister?”

Grace chuckled. “I think that His Grace will see the playfulness in your eyes when he looks at you and he will remember what it was like to be six years old. I think you’ll do fine, dear.”

Adelaide let out a loud sigh of resignation. Oh, how simple life was at six…

“Aaaaaall riiiiiight, IIIIII’ll go…”

Grace watched Adelaide reluctantly rise and brush at the dirt on her knees. Adelaide looked at Grace a moment then asked, “Aren’t you coming, too?”

“Oh, Addie, I’ll be along shortly. Please, don’t let me hold you back. You race on ahead before your mother sends the footmen out looking for you. She won’t be pleased if she has to pull them from their duties to go looking for you, not now of all times, will she?”

Adelaide’s eyes widened at the thought, and she immediately dashed off toward the path leading back to Beckett House, all the while yelling back, “You are right. I’ll see you back at the house, Grace.”

Grace laughed at the sight. Adelaide was a charming and precocious child…and right. It was time she headed back to the house and the reality within, though at the moment, she felt a near overwhelming urge to spend the entire day hiding out amongst the shrubbery instead.

Grace gathered her shoes, stockings, and bonnet, her pins still held within, and stood, holding her skirts high to allow the breeze to dry her legs before making her way back up the path to Beckett House. She knew she had to go through with it, the party and all it encompassed, though she didn’t like it. She reminded herself it was only until her twenty-first birthday, and then she would be free to enact her own plans for the future. Until then, she could manage what was required to save her relatives from unnecessary embarrassment.

Grace sought out the sun and was surprised to note how long she had been sitting there, and with a renewed sense of urgency began to make her way home. She pulled her hair up in a loose topknot as she went and secured it haphazardly with her pins, just enough to hold until she could get back inside the house.

Along with her shoes, Grace still held her bonnet in hand even though her aunt would have an apoplexy if she got too much sun on her face and broke out in freckles, not to mention walking about barefoot. Grace chuckled at the subsequent ‘scandal’ this might cause amongst the guests. She thought about what her aunt would say if she wasn’t able to get back to her rooms unseen; in addition to everything else, she was dressed in her most tattered morning dress, one she only used for mucking about in the garden when no one else was around.

A few minutes later, Grace came out of the woods, shoes and bonnet still in hand, and the full expanse of Beckett House and its surrounding gardens came into view. She stopped for just a moment to appreciate the sight of the manor home standing stoically before her with its plain, rough stone façade. It was quite inviting, in her opinion, though it seemed oddly placed amidst the manicured lawns and hedgerows her aunt obsessed over so keenly. The formal gardens were not quite to Grace’s taste; her tastes ran more to the rough, untamed beauty of the area by the lake, which actually seemed to better match the house’s architecture than its own gardens.

Grace shook off her woolgathering and picked up her pace; she had been gone for far too long. She was just walking down a slight rise at the edge of the formal gardens, not paying particular attention to where she was stepping, when she hit a patch of mud and slipped.

Her arms flailed about wildly as she tried, unsuccessfully, to remain upright—but, alas, therein lay the jest…She was Grace—not graceful.

“Oh, fiddlesticks,” she said aloud, as she found herself spun around and on her backside in a rather large puddle of mud.

How could she have missed that?

Grace landed so hard she was fairly oozing mud from her crown to her toes. Already, she could feel the telltale signs of liquid earth soaking into the back of her dress.

Grace closed her eyes to offer up a wishful prayer that no one was about the gardens to witness her mucky mishap. Then she took a deep breath and calmed herself by considering that the guests, including His Grace, were not expected until much later. She was likely in luck.

Grace was just contemplating the best route back inside the house without alerting anyone else of her—misfortune—when a monogrammed handkerchief suddenly appeared over her shoulder.

Chapter 2

The Bull and Thistle Inn…

The evening before…

Crash…

Breaking glass followed by raised voices and boisterous laughter disturbed the tenuous peace at the Bull and Thistle Inn—the only inn and tavern in the small village near Amberley in West Sussex. It was a nightmare for anyone planning to attempt something as mundane as sleep.

Ambrose Philip Langtry, the tenth Duke of Stonebridge, gritted his teeth in annoyance as he stripped out of his travelling clothes. He was weary and needed sleep. It was going to be a long night.

“Bryans, we’re leaving at first light. I don’t care how early we arrive at Beckett House; it will be preferable to remaining here any longer than absolutely necessary,” he told his valet. The inn was a rowdy place and he would die a happy man if he never saw its rotting façade again.

“Yes, Your Grace. Shall I call the guard and have everyone clapped in irons, then?” responded Bryans, audaciously, yet with a somber face. He had been with the duke a long time and had grown somewhat impertinent over the years.

“I am in no mood for your cheek this evening,” he told Bryans with all seriousness. With a stern look and a raised brow, he dared the man to continue his insolence. But Bryans just ignored him and continued about his duties. The man had some nerve.

Both men almost missed the knock on the door due to all the noise coming from downstairs, despite the racket being muffled through two floors of guest rooms. The duke pulled his dressing gown tight as Bryans answered the door.

Stonebridge nearly groaned out loud as Bryans revealed, once again, the innkeeper’s now familiar face in the open doorway. Instead, he gritted his teeth and waited patiently to hear the innkeeper out.

“Aaah, Your Grace, I’m righ’ sorry for the racket below and though’ I should check if’n you needed ought…and I brough’ some of me own ‘ouse brandy to ‘elp you sett’l in for the nigh’.” The innkeeper grinned widely as he brought in a tray with his offering, revealing gaping holes where several teeth should have been.

The duke would be dying of thirst before he had any more of that swill the innkeeper called brandy. Of course, he didn’t say that out loud, but the poor plant in the corner would probably be dead by morning.

“Thank you for your generosity. We’re fine and just retiring for the night. Good evening.” Stonebridge nodded his head toward the door to make his wishes clear: he was ready to retire without further disturbance. The curt dismissal was so short as to be rude, but Stonebridge couldn’t find it in himself to care. The innkeeper and his wife had stopped by his privately reserved dining room eighteen times during dinner, and now his patience was at an end.

“Righ’ then, I’ll be off, but don’t ‘esitate to ring if’n you need anythin’ at’all…” The innkeeper backed out of the room, scraping and bowing the entire way. It was almost comical, especially as he nearly ran his arse into the door frame on his way out. Stonebridge detested the overzealous show of deference. He was only a man, for goodness sakes.

The duke turned away from the door and began untying the belt of his dressing gown as he made his way to the bed. Bryans had followed the innkeeper downstairs to ensure he had no plans to return.

“I think I migh’ have somefin’ better to offer…to ‘elp you unwind, Your Grace.”

Stonebridge paused in the act of removing his dressing gown. The muscles in his shoulders and back tensed at the suggestive feminine voice behind him.

Will I never get some rest this eve?

He couldn’t begin to imagine how the chit had managed to slip past the innkeeper and his valet in order to enter his room unbidden—not to mention that he was usually keenly aware of his surroundings.
What the deuce was in that drink anyway?
He tamped down the bulk of his ire and turned about to face the woman who had spoken. He braced his hands on his hips in the world-recognized sign of annoyance.

The barmaid, Annie, leaned casually back against the door to his room, half-dressed and posed to entice. She audibly sucked in her breath the moment he faced her fully. Probably because he was mostly unclothed, his dressing gown untied and gaping open as it was. Still, he made his anger plain with his eyes and by his stance, yet she seemed determined to ignore it. He took in the sight of her in return. He was irritated, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t take a moment to appreciate her charms before he sent her on her way.

She was comely and curvaceous, and too young to be missing her teeth or for the toll of hard living to be obvious in the skin of her face and hands. Her top was loosely tied, displaying more than a hint of her overly large breasts, and her leg was raised, her foot resting against the door, baring her leg to his view in an attempt to entice. It wouldn’t take a lot of effort to bed her—in fact his cock stirred with interest at the sight she presented—but he was too smart to tempt disease and a bastard for a single night’s pleasure.

After one more quick perusal of her voluptuous form, he drew in a swift breath but moved no closer; his patience tonight was finally at an end.

“Get. Out.”

That was all he needed to say for her to turn and bolt out the door. He knew how to use his size and commanding voice to coerce when necessary, and he was tired of being bothered today; he had no more patience to be the gentleman and offer kind words to spare another’s feelings.

“A bit harsh there, wasn’t it?”

Stonebridge shook his head at the sound of yet another voice coming from the opposite corner of the room. He looked up and beseeched the ceiling. “What will it take to get some peace around here? I feel like a display at the British Museum with the number of people coming through the door.”

“That’s all right then. I didn’t use the door.”

The duke relaxed, marginally, and chuckled at the quip as he turned to face his best friend, Clifford Ross, the Marquess of Dansbury, who was sitting in a chair near the soon-to-be-dead foliage in the corner. Cliff was a broad man with golden hair and tranquil brown eyes, deceptive eyes. The man always looked relaxed; he epitomized the state, but in reality, Cliff was always watching, always calculating, always remembering. But he was the only person with whom Stonebridge felt at all comfortable letting down his guard.

Stonebridge wasn’t really angry at his friend for the intrusion—the information he might impart was too important—and it didn’t strike him at all odd that his friend mightn’t have used the door. The man was astonishingly stealthy for his size. Cliff was pushing six and a half feet and was equally as broad of shoulder, yet he could get in and out of anywhere completely undetected. If he didn’t want you to see him, you didn’t. If he didn’t want you to hear him, you wouldn’t. It was part of the job. Their real job. They were both agents for the Crown, and at the moment they were investigating the murder of the previous Duke of Stonebridge, his father.

Yes. His father’s death was no accident. Stonebridge had always known—even as a newly orphaned boy he had known, and his conviction was validated three months ago when he received an anonymous note through the mail. The author suggested they had proof his father had indeed been slain and that it was all related to a little known assassination attempt on Prime Minister Pitt, which had occurred at about the same time.

The rest of the world still thought the worst about his father—that he’d been out ‘carrying on’ with another man—that it was all a tragic yet deserving accident. Now the proof he needed was within reach and Stonebridge was all too eager for answers.

“What do you have?” Stonebridge decided to get to the point. His friend wasn’t just stopping by to share the latest
on dit
.

“You mean, besides the fact that this plant smells intoxicated?” Cliff laughed. “Unfortunately, not a lot, yet…Kelly and MacLeod arrived late last night with our man as planned. His name is Paddy Murphy. He’s a former Irish assassin and mercenary with loose ties to the United Irishmen—or a known supporter, at any rate. He hasn’t been officially seen or active since 1798, when he vanished in September of that year only to resurface last week in Belfast. We’re positive he sent the note.”

“I knew it,” interrupted the duke as he slammed his fist against the nearby door frame. He could taste victory, and he wanted to shout ‘I told you so’ like a two-year-old. They were so close.

“Yes, it cannot be a coincidence. His disappearance coincides perfectly with your father’s death. Murphy has been quite resistant to our methods of persuasion so far, but we’ll get it. He’s adamant he wants to speak to you and only you. He wants reassurances and safe passage to America.”