Page 15 of A Duke Never Tells

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

MEG PINWELL

Meg sat up in her borrowed bed and looked at Clara. Clara sat in the chair set beside the bed and looked back at Meg. Good heavens.

Of all the things she might have imagined about the Duke of Earnhurst, his bad habits and his poor reputation, his horrible, wrecked home, his questionable wealth, never in Meg’s wildest dreams could she have conjured him doing something as villainous as forcing his illegitimate brother to be his butler. She’d wanted him to be an unsatisfactory match for her, one so obviously wrong that her parents couldn’t help but to agree with her. Never until this moment, though, had she thought he might be… evil. Mean. Spiteful. Whatever it was that caused men to abuse their own inferior relations.

“I have no idea what to say,” Clara muttered, starting to her feet and then changing her mind.

“I told you Earnhurst was horrid.”

“Yes, but his other faults could be put to neglect or being at odds with his father or… or being too fond of drink. This is wholly different, Meg.”

“We certainly have our answer about his character,” Meg commented, sending another glare at her ankle, “but we’re still trapped here for days and days.”

“What we have to keep in mind, I think, is that we’ve now heard James’s point of view. We haven’t yet heard the duke’s.”

Raising both eyebrows, Meg slapped her hands against the bed sheets. “Our purpose here was to find an irrefutable reason for me not to marry him, Clara. I think we’ve accomplished that.”

“No, you have one side of a disagreement. To make an informed decision, we need both sides.”

Oh, for heaven’s sake. Clara and her blasted logic. “Do we? Do we truly need to hear him attempt to defend himself?”

Her aunt’s shoulders lowered. “Logically, I maintain that there are good parts to the Duke of Earnhurst. There would have to be, or he wouldn’t be as popular as he is known to be in Mayfair. You have to concede that. You need to see those as well, and to hear from him about his own reasoning, before you make your ultimate decision.”

“Do you think anything could possibly sway me after this? And what about you? You’re generally prepared to detest men sight unseen. What will it take to convince you ? Discovering that he murdered someone?”

“My point is that we haven’t discovered everything. The good or the bad. Today, for instance, a day after your injury, he has workmen downstairs repairing the staircase. Perhaps your accident jolted him into a sense of responsibility.”

“I happen to know that James confronted him about the stairs. And I can’t tell if you’re pushing for this match, or if you’re admiring the Duke of Earnhurst, yourself.” Meg narrowed her eyes. Whichever it was, she didn’t like it. Clara Bosley had always been her ally and her confidante. If Clara meant to ally with the enemy now, when they’d discovered something certain… Well, that would never do.

“I am doing neither!” Clara exclaimed, going over to the nightstand to pull out Meg’s journal and a pencil. “You should know that better than anyone, Meg. I’m encouraging you to make a fair and reasoned decision. He isn’t just the man you’re supposed to marry, you know. He’s a home, a lofty title, children, the impact you can have on Society and all of England, th—”

Meg clamped her hands over her ears. “I know, I know! Just stop. It’s easier to concentrate on the first bit of that, because if I loathe him, if I could never love him, then you can add ‘Meg, miserable’ to that list of my life you just made.” She gestured for the journal. “Hand it over. I need to make notes before I forget.”

Clara did so. “I don’t want ‘Meg, miserable’ on any list. Only ‘Meg, open-minded.’ You’ve always been so before. I’m trying to be so, as well, because you know quite well that I would prefer you remain unmarried. You’re the only reason I’ve remained in Devon for the past five years while your mother prods me every day to find myself a husband and stop having contrary opinions. Certainly, in return for my own patience and circumspection you can also be open-minded for the next fortnight.”

She couldn’t very well say no to that. “I shall be open-minded for the next fortnight, then. But to be clear, I can’t confront him about anything. That will have to be you. I am a lady’s companion he’s supposed to forget the moment we leave, if not before then.”

Her aunt didn’t look very happy at that, but they’d chosen their identities, and Clara’s was the one who could converse with a duke. “Very well. You’ll have to trust me, then, my dear.”

“I always have.” Meg retrieved the last half of her sandwich and took another bite, following that with a generous drink of lemonade. To herself she could admit that the duke’s swift move to repair the stairs did speak well of him, even if it had taken her nearly breaking her neck and his half brother yelling at him to spur him to action. Hmm. Now that she considered it, perhaps it wasn’t such a grand gesture he’d made. No duke would want a woman falling to her death in his home. Especially not a newly promoted duke who was behaving in a dastardly manner toward his own kin, legitimate or not.

“Not to change the subject, but what happened to your healing diet of bread and broth and water?” Clara lifted an eyebrow at her generous repast.

“James spoke with the cook,” Meg replied, very happy to stop talking about the Duke of Earnhurst for a blasted minute. “I don’t know what he said, but twenty minutes after he left the room, this appeared. I have no idea what dinner will bring, but at least I’ll be fortified against it.” It had been completely unexpected, and given what she now knew about James, it had been very kind. And perhaps he wasn’t doing so terribly as a butler, considering. He was very pleasant to gaze upon, certainly, and much easier to talk to than Earnhurst. She had the feeling that would be so even if she’d been herself.

“I already informed His Grace that I will be dining with you tonight, so hopefully your fare will be adequate. If not, I’ll begin raiding the larder at midnight and smuggling you apples or something.”

This morning she’d been genuinely concerned that she faced two weeks of the barest sustenance. Since the butler seemed to be on her side now, that concern had somewhat faded. Still, the guarantee of an actual meal with meat and oh, rolls and butter, seemed heavenly. “I hope that won’t be necessary,” Meg said aloud, “but I do appreciate your willingness to commit larceny on my behalf.”

Chuckling, Clara reached over and gripped Meg’s hand. “I hope you know by now that you are the most precious being in the world to me. I wouldn’t even blink at robbing a coach if that was what was required to see you well cared for.”

With a snort Meg sank back into the giant puff of pillows again. “We’d have to come up with a good highwayman name for you. ‘Clara Chaos’ or something.”

“Hmm. I’d use my faux name, in order to protect our family’s reputation. ‘Sophie the Knife’ appeals. Or ‘Pickpurse Sophie.’”

“That’s a good one,” Meg agreed, grinning. “Of course, that would make me ‘Mabel of the Stable’ or something.”

Clara laughed. “‘Peg Leg Meg’ has a much better ring to it,” she chortled, putting both hands over her mouth. “Oh, dear. But whatever we become next, I will make certain that you and I will be enjoying the same dinner. And I am not settling for bread and water.”

She stood again, and Meg took a breath. Generally, she enjoyed being left to herself. Long afternoons for reading or walking or riding or strolling in the garden were far more satisfying than having to sit next to her mother and embroider or learn a new piece on the pianoforte.

Here, however, she didn’t have a choice. She was alone unless or until someone came to visit her. “Despite what we’ve been discovering about the duke, you haven’t said much about the actual present state of things here,” she commented, straightening again. “In fact, I’m almost ready to think you’ve been avoiding that conversation.”

“I haven’t seen everything yet.” With a slight grimace Clara sat again. “What I have inspected is in a sad state, which you knew. From what I could gather, the old duke wanted the new duke to step in as far back as six years ago to take over the reins of the estate and in fact refused to make any repairs that weren’t first approved by Lord Duffy. I would hazard a guess that old Earnhurst thought to educate his son as to the property’s intimate workings before he took the title, but new Earnhurst resented being forced into it.”

“Having him step in to become familiar with the workings of the estate while his predecessor was still about makes perfect sense to me. It’s a large place. It’s not even Earnhurst’s only property. Of course he should have come and learned how to maintain it. It was silly to do otherwise. Then again, old Earnhurst left his other son to be a gambler, so perhaps he wasn’t as upstanding as Papa thought him.”

Inclining her head, Clara folded her hands into her lap. “Yes. But his brother’s previous choice of employment—and his existence—isn’t new Earnhurst’s fault, strictly speaking. And I think new Earnhurst now regrets not returning sooner. I don’t wish to make excuses for him, especially now, but I did get the strong feeling that he and his father butted heads regularly, and that he dismissed the idea of taking over here as another of his father’s schemes to overrule his own wishes. He didn’t know how seriously ill his father was until it was too late.”

That had an air of plausibility to it, Meg supposed. Even with supremely indulgent parents herself, she understood how it felt to be required to do something that was at least partly against her own wishes. Like an arranged marriage before she’d had her first waltz at Almack’s, for example. But people also invented excuses to save themselves from embarrassment. “If I faced unexpected guests and had a tumble of ruins around my head, I might say the same thing,” she said aloud. “You only know what he’s told you, which may or may not have any relationship at all to the truth.”

“Which is precisely what I’m trying to say about James and his tale. Perhaps you should query the other servants for more information about the property and about the Clay family in general. That was our original plan, as I recall.”

“If I can arrange for any of them to come see me, I shall do so. For the moment, I have James, who I assume has a special determination to find ill about his employer. I think his incompetence as a butler is why the duke sends him to sit with me, but at least I’ll have more excuses to chat with him.”

“Ask him questions that he would have no reason to suspect have a deeper meaning.”

“I will. And I still mean to have him introduce Earnhurst’s valet to me, as well, once I’ve figured out how to do it without causing suspicion. Now especially, James Riniken can’t be allowed to know I have my own reasons for investigating the duke.”

“Precisely. We continue with caution. You see, it’s good to take steps to learn everything possible about a thing before you make a decision.”

“Or, it’s good to learn everything possible about a thing to support the decision you’ve already made,” Meg countered, smiling to keep another argument from beginning.

Clara sighed as she stood again. “Even so. I’ll see you before dinner.”

Once her aunt left the room, Meg picked up her grain production book again. She would have been willing to wager that whoever had written about grain production in the Midlands had lived a very dull life and probably dined only on bread and water intentionally because he was so very stodgy.

She didn’t mean to live a dull life. Nor did she want one with someone who’d ignored a dying parent, then ignored the resulting chaos until it was too late, and then denied an independent living to his half brother and forced him into servitude. Somewhere in the happy middle where roofs weren’t falling in and gardens weren’t dead would be quite enough for her, thank you very much. An earldom or even a barony would be lovely; while perhaps every girl dreamed of one day being a duchess or a princess, fairy tale castles did not look like this unless they were inhabited by witches or ogres.

Indeed, a more modest home with a small garden full of blooming roses and flowering hedges and hollyhocks and lavender would have been much more welcoming and inviting. What would her excuse have been, if that had been what she’d found here, though?

Her parents had given her a lovely childhood, and had seen to it that she knew all the rules of propriety, whether or not she remembered to use them when something untoward caught her attention. She’d meant to begin her search for a proper match last Season in London, but once her father had found a man for her, that had become unnecessary. They’d handed her everything, including a duke for a husband. And all she’d done was delay putting together a wedding trousseau, read sordid tales of her groom-to-be’s activities in London, and go out of her way to view his family seat in person and declare her revulsion.

Did all that make her spoiled? Ungrateful? Was it rebellious that she’d looked forward to flirting and forming attachments and finding someone who adored her—and whom she could adore?

“Ugh,” she grumbled, slapping the book open and propping it on another pillow across her lap. She’d told Clara she meant to keep an open mind, and she would try her best to do just that for the next fortnight. If the Duke of Earnhurst could win her over, he had that long to accomplish it. And he would have no idea he was doing it, which at least made the process more honest.

So even if he was some ten years older than she’d expected, and stern and barrel-chested and mustachioed and intimidating, she would give him an opportunity to be other than what he clearly was. And she would not have occasional daydreams about James Riniken, the butler, who shared the same first name with his half brother—even if he was handsome and amusing and sarcastic and had seen her fed a delightful sandwich and told her a fairy-tale-worthy story.