When You Wish Upon a Duke (30 page)

But as the sun set and the empty evening stretched before her, she was forced to realize that he likely would not come back that day or even that night. Greenwood Park was many hours from London, and it would be nearly impossible for him to have journeyed there this morning, done whatever it was he was determined to do during the day, and come back to town.

Whatever March was doing, he was clearly doing it without her. The more she considered this, the more lonely and despondent she became. They hadn’t even been wed a fortnight, and already her husband had left her. He’d told her it wasn’t her fault, but how could it not be? Somehow she’d driven him away, and not knowing the reason only made it worse. She’d felt better when she’d been at Sir Lucas’s studio, because then she’d been taking action, however empty it might prove to be, and not merely waiting. Now the vast house seemed so empty that even the silence echoed, and she’d never felt more alone, nor more unhappy.

She was so lost in her misery and in missing March
that she started when Polly came to the door again. With her was a footman from the front hall and, more surprising, a footman who wasn’t hers.

“Forgive me for interrupting you, Your Grace,” Polly said with a hasty curtsey. “But this man says he has a most urgent message for you from His Grace.”

“From His Grace?” Eagerly Charlotte rose to address the man. “What news have you of the duke? Have you brought me a letter, a note?”

“Your Grace.” The footman bowed low, his expression blankly inscrutable in the manner of the best-trained servants. “I regret that I have not, ma’am. His Grace did not wish to take the time to write, but sent me to deliver his message in person.”

That was so unlike March that immediately Charlotte feared the worst. “He isn’t injured, is he? Not harmed, or ill?”

“Not at all, ma’am,” the footman said quickly. “He is attending my mistress, Lady Finnister, at her home, and wishes you to come join him there.”

“The duke is with Lady Finnister?” Charlotte frowned, both perplexed and doubtful, too. Given March’s feelings regarding Lady Finnister—and he’d made no secret of them—she couldn’t imagine why, if he had in fact returned to town, he’d gone there, rather than here. Yet she’d no real reason to doubt the servant, especially now that she recognized his livery as belonging to the Finnisters. “He is there now?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the footman said. “His Grace arrived in the company and coach of His Grace the Duke of Breconridge, who brought him direct from the company.”

That did make sense. It was entirely like Brecon to have fetched March back from the country, and likely, too, that Brecon would then have thrust March into the raucous company of the Finnisters as a way of improving his spirits—and hers.

She frowned, still considering. “Parker, how long would it take to ready a carriage for me?”

“Forgive me, ma’am,” said the other footman. “Lady Finnister sent her own carriage for your use. It waits at the door.”

“How kind of her,” Charlotte murmured. It truly did seem as if everything had been arranged. The three servants stood in respectful silence before her, waiting for her to make up her mind. She could stay here alone, or she could join March. What kind of decision was that?

“The blue silk with the pink ribbons, Polly,” she said. “And quickly, too. I do not wish to keep His Grace waiting.”

March dropped heavily into the old armchair before the fire, stretching his stockinged feet before him toward the warmth. He’d two of his favorite dogs asleep before him, and another snoring lightly with her chin on his knee. Since he’d arrived at Greenwood this afternoon, he’d purposely not stopped working. With Carter at his side to take notes, he’d been everything a conscientious lord and landowner should be. He’d gone from surveying a freshly sprouted field to smiling at the foals in the stable enclosure, from viewing the new bricks relining the icehouse near the lake to inspecting the old drain near the dairy. He listened to the head gardener’s report and agreed that there should be fewer cabbages planted and more asparagus, and he’d knelt in the empty dolphin fountain to peer into the pipes with the engineer to make sure for himself that it truly did need fresh lead plumbing before it was filled for the season.

When the sun had set, he’d moved his labors to his library, going over every ledger book and record with Carter as if they hadn’t done it only two weeks before. Only when Carter had been literally falling asleep in his
chair had March released him, the tall clock in the great hall chiming two in the morning.

Yet March himself remained restless, his thoughts still far too uneasy to give way to the peace of sleep. He’d been able to push away his memories of last night as long as he’d been occupied and around others. Now, with only the dogs and the fire before him for company, those memories came rushing back to torment him: Father and Rome, ruined temples and lewd paintings, and Father’s endless drinking and belligerence. And women: jeweled courtesans, brash actresses, or low, filthy creatures from the river, they were all the same to Father, and all used the same way, too. No matter how March had tried to bury his head in his pillow, he heard the same every night, Father’s drunken laughter and the women’s, too, and then the terrifying roars and grunts and exclamations and cries that had sounded more like animals than humans. He’d had no choice, not with Father. What he’d been forced to witness had stayed with him ever after.

Yet why should he believe that he was any better? The old saying was that blood will tell, and it had told last night. What he’d done to Charlotte, how he’d treated her—he’d never forget that, either. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t escape.

He was the Duke of Marchbourne, and he was his father’s son.

Charlotte paused in the doorway to Lady Finnister’s parlor, eagerly scanning the room for her first glimpse of March. Seemingly nothing had changed from the night before, with the same elegantly dressed company engaged in much the same pursuits around the same tables.

But everything that had seemed brilliant and exciting last night had now lost both its brilliance and excitement without March to share it, and she made her way into the crowded room, determined to find him as soon as she could.” Oh, Your Grace, how happy I am to see you!” exclaimed Lady Finnister, rushing to greet her. “I never dreamed you would come, I never thought—that is, it’s
such
a pleasure to have you back among us.”

“Thank you,” Charlotte said, “and thank you for the kind use of your carriage as well. Now, if you could please tell me where I could find the duke—”

“Oh, the carriage was nothing, nothing at all!” Lady Finnister’s laugh was shrill, and to Charlotte there seemed to be a false, nervous note to it as well. “I am most honored to have assisted you, ma’am.”

Charlotte smiled and tried to ease past her, but Lady Finnister abruptly seized her by the arm. It was a bold, improper familiarity, but what startled Charlotte more was the anxiety she saw in the other woman’s eyes.

“I could not help it, ma’am,” Lady Finnister confided
in a swift, urgent whisper. “How could I? I pray you might understand, one lady to another. His rank is so much greater than mine, and when he asked, I could not refuse.”

Charlotte drew back with surprise. She couldn’t imagine March imperiously demanding the use of the Finnister carriage, not the way Lady Finnister was making it sound.

“Please don’t distress yourself,” she said as kindly as she could. “I’m sure he never intended to impose in any way.”

But Lady Finnister only shook her head, her painted eyes watery with unshed tears. “He waits for you down that passage, in Sir Henry’s library.”

“Then I must go.” Charlotte’s heart raced with anticipation as she made her way through the crowded rooms, past the gaming tables, and down a short hall to the library. Clearly this was Sir Henry’s male domain in a house dominated by his wife, with manly leather armchairs and bronzes of fighting gladiators, and the overbearing reek of tobacco, even with the two windows open over the garden.

But to her sorrowful disappointment, there was no sign of the one male she wished most to see.

“March?” she called uncertainly as she walked deeper into the room, hoping against hope that he’d suddenly pop out from behind a tall-backed armchair, or perhaps that Chinese screen. She glanced from the open window, wondering if he’d gone to the garden. “March? Are you here?”

“Alas, dear lady, I fear he is not,” Lord Andover said, the latch on the door closing shut with an ominous click. “That is, alas for you, but most fortunate for me.”

Charlotte turned to face him, so swiftly that her silk skirts swung whispering around her ankles. “Lord Andover!”

“Your servant, Your Grace,” he said, bowing deeply, though still somehow managing to leer at her. “I cannot tell you how pleased and honored I am to have your company to myself.”

“And I cannot tell you how displeased I am by it,” she sputtered indignantly. “Now please open that door at once, so that I may pass. I came here to meet my husband, not you, and when he learns of your—your presumption, he will surely have strong words for you.”

“Oh, I’ve no doubt of that, ma’am,” he said, sauntering slowly toward her instead of opening the door. “But you needn’t fear me. I have only the highest regard both for your honor and for your husband’s temper.”

“I am glad of that, Lord Andover,” Charlotte said, backing away. Where
was
March, anyway? “Because you do not wish to discover which is the more fierce.”

He showed too many of his teeth when he laughed. “Your honor is fierce, ma’am?”

“If necessary, my honor can be as fierce as any tigress’s,” she said, striving to sound as fierce as she claimed, and not as uneasy as she felt. “Now let me pass, else when the duke joins us—”

“Alas again, ma’am, but His Grace will not be joining us,” he said, relentlessly closing the distance between them, “not unless he has sprouted angel’s wings to carry him here from Greenwood.”

“But he sent for me himself,” Charlotte protested, and even as she spoke, she realized the appalling truth. The Finnister carriage, the footman with his verbal message instead of a written one, Lady Finnister’s halting apology—it all made dreadful sense to her now. The marquess had learned March had left town from her at Sir Lucas’s studio, and her trust and eagerness had made her gullible. March wasn’t here and never had been, and she was the greater fool for believing the lies.

“You—you
lured
me here,” she said, not hiding her
disgust. “You say you respect me and my honor, and then you act in this vile, deceitful fashion!”

Lord Andover’s smile was more of a smirk. “There is no deceit in the game of love, Duchess. Now that we are alone, I hope you will put aside these tedious scruples so we might explore more … more enjoyable pleasures together, yes?”

He reached to touch her cheek, and she swatted his hand away. He wasn’t as tall as March, not much taller than she herself, but he was as broad-chested as a bull, and she’d no wish to test her strength against his.

“Might I remind you that you promised to respect me, Lord Andover?” she said, trying to sound haughty and aloof. “And my husband, the duke, as well?”

He wasn’t impressed. Instead he pushed closer, his arms arching out on either side to corner her. His ruddy face had grown even more red, his expression so determined that the first flutterings of real fear rose in her chest.

“Your husband, you say,” he said, his eyes gleaming with desire. “If Marchbourne’s not man enough for you, Duchess, then I’m happy to serve you in his stead.”

“You!”
she exclaimed, holding her hands out to keep him back. It wasn’t much use; she’d backed away so far that she’d almost reached the wall, and now she was cornered with no further retreat. “You’re not a tenth of my gentleman-husband—nay, not a hundredth. Away with you, sir, before I make a row and disgrace you!”

“No, you won’t,” he countered, breathing hard. “You’d be the one disgraced, ma’am, not I. Anyone you summon will see that you are here with me of your own will.”

He was almost right. To be discovered in an unseemly tussle with Lord Andover would shame both her and March. What she did in the next few moments could bring more scandal crashing into his exemplary life than
he’d ever experienced, and she loved him too much to do that to him. She
couldn’t
.

“Come now, Duchess, let’s amuse ourselves,” Lord Andover coaxed, inching ever closer. “Show me this tigress in you. Yes, yes, show your Wylder blood! Show your claws, ma’am, and by God, I’ll tame you.”

“You will not, sir, not at all.” She jerked to one side and remembered the open window, there like a gift from Providence. Without a second’s hesitation she sat on the sill and swung her legs over, the same as she’d done thousands of times at Ransom Manor. She reached for the thick branch of the oak tree that stood obligingly nearby and pulled herself onto the branch, her hooped skirts fluttering and tangling around her legs. Desperately she tried to find her footing, the leather soles and high heels of her mules slipping on the smooth bark, until she kicked them off and they fell to the garden path below. Her feet in silk stockings were better, much better, and with a small sigh of concentration she sidled down the branch to the trunk and away from Lord Andover, her skirts rustling along with the oak leaves.