Page 26 of A Duke Never Tells
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
JAMES CLAY
James woke so early the rest of the household hadn’t yet begun to stir. He contemplated trying to go back to sleep, but his mind had begun whirling while his eyes were still shut, and there would be no peace in his skull at all now.
He dressed, forgoing a cravat because he would be spending the day shoveling again, and despite whatever Goodfrey had to say about that. Slipping out of his room, he nabbed an apple from the kitchen and headed out to the garden.
Because his tiny tomb of a room remained windowless he had no idea of the weather, though the paintings he’d moved from the upstairs sitting room to decorate the bare walls were both of pretty Dorsetshire spring mornings. In actuality, it had rained overnight, and now a thick fog covered the property, settling a cold damp onto his face, through the layers of cloth he wore, and into his bones the moment he left the house. It suited his mood, so he pulled his coat closer around himself and otherwise ignored it.
From the head of the garden he could barely make out the wall at the far end, but even so the place looked much improved.
Yesterday they’d rigged up a winch and lifted the cupid back into its place atop the fountain, with one of the craftsmen he’d hired assuring him that this time the cement would hold until hell cracked open. That seemed adequate, and they’d left the winch in place, helping to hold the giant boy in place for a week or so while the mixture dried and hardened beneath his bare, cherubic toes.
The workers wouldn’t arrive from Remiton for another hour, with today set aside for bringing in new plants from the best nurseries and greenhouses in neighboring Dorchester. Roses of all colors, lavenders varying from the palest violet to the deepest purple, and pink and red and yellow hollyhocks. He’d asked for those three species specifically, but had left the rest of the selection of plants and flowers to the nurseries.
He knew exactly why he’d chosen them, and it hadn’t been to please Lady Margaret Pinwell, currently and secretly going by the moniker Lady Sophronia Frumple. Yes, Elliott Riniken was well pleased with her, and she’d certainly taken an interest in Earnhurst Castle and its renovations, but it hadn’t been her thoughts on gardens that he’d cared to indulge.
For some reason, unexplainable in a man who’d spent his adult life misbehaving, breaking every rule that tried to brick him in simply because he knew that no one short of his father would dare try to stop him—and because he’d wanted that man to step up and for God’s sake stop him —he’d expected that his first meeting with his future bride would be… memorable. Magical. Not fireworks bursting in the air or anything so obvious, but something that would signify he and his father had somehow managed to make peace even from beyond the grave.
Yes, Lady Sophronia—Margaret—was pretty, all dark gold hair and bright green eyes, and yes, she had her wits about her. And she had opinions about everything. He had no doubt that Lady Margaret could have organized the entire repair of Earnhurst on her own, done it in a day or two, and still had time to sit down in the library and read half his collection of books.
As for what it was about her that annoyed him so keenly, he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Opinionated, smart, witty—in those ways she and her friend or companion or servant, or whoever Mabel was, were very similar. But Mabel had a sense of whimsy that Sophronia lacked; an ability to be… silly and self-deprecating and wonderful that he’d never experienced before and now considered vital. Hell, she’d named her horse Penelope of Plymouth, which he adored. He adored Mabel Gooster, God help him.
But Mabel wasn’t his bride-to-be. He was betrothed to the one who liked hearing military tales and who saw no difficulty in keeping her companion with her even after marriage so he would have Mabel right… there, beneath his own damned roof, so close and so far, a curse far worse than the one the devil had given Tantalus.
What a damned mess it all was. In the midst of the disaster, though, he had to admit that over the past week he himself felt improved. The James Clay he used to be would barely have gone to bed at this hour, and wouldn’t have risen until late afternoon at the earliest. He would currently be drunk. And he would likely have had any of a number of different women keeping him company, and would have to go to the bother of getting rid of whoever she was before he went out again that evening.
He crunched into his apple. What a damned odd set of days this had been. Even odder, as he’d confessed to Mabel, he’d been enjoying the digging and carrying plants and heavy stones about. He’d always thought that being a duke would be a more cerebral activity, dry, regimented, and bloodless. Physical labor—doing a thing and seeing the result of his work—he liked it. And he certainly liked knowing that what he’d done would please someone. Would please her.
His friends would be howling with laughter, to see him digging in the dirt to please a lady’s companion. To see him mad over a glorified servant. Perhaps this was what he deserved for ignoring his duties for so long—a pointed lesson that the name he’d been happy to drag through the mud could strike back just as sharply and keep him from doing as he truly wanted. From being with the woman he loved.
“Just getting up, or just going to bed?” Riniken asked from the far side of the garden gate. He was up on his chestnut gelding, Charles, and dressed to ride.
“You had Goodfrey find you something appropriate for riding,” James commented, taking another bite of apple. “That’s admirable attention to detail, Your Grace.”
“He threatened to burn my old uniform if I didn’t wear this,” the man of business said, brushing at his chest with his free hand. “I thought it best not to test him.” Elliott paused. “The garden is coming along quite well.”
“Thank you. I poked my head into the library yesterday evening. Your renovations are impressive. And I noticed the mahogany going back onto the staircase. Thank you for that. My version was rather angular.”
Riniken inclined his head. “Angular, yes, but definitely sturdy.” The gelding sidestepped, and he brought Charles back under control with an ease that said he spent a great deal of time in the saddle. “I thought perhaps this evening after the ladies retire, we might review the plans again. I have a question or two about aesthetics, mainly. His Grace was fond of warlike decoration, and I’d originally thought a fresher, less masculine setting might be called for, but now I believe fewer changes might be necessary.”
“You might have noticed I removed the bear’s head and the suit of armor from the master bedchamber before I gave it over to you; I kept dreaming they were attacking me. So, yes, let’s chat this evening. I’ll bring the wine. And my contrary opinion.” He certainly knew what this was about—Riniken was trying to drag him back in to taking more interest in and responsibility for the interior of the house. And the manor did have a definite warlike aesthetic.
But as Elliott had noted, his future bride no doubt appreciated the weapons and armor and shields dangling from the walls, the suits of armor guarding every alcove throughout the sprawl of a building, the wall of guns in the billiards room, and the display of swords and daggers arranged like a half sun in the great dining hall. In that case, he should leave them be, he supposed.
A more generous, kinder man would leave them be because his bride would enjoy them, that was. He was neither of those things, and when he imagined this house in the future, it wasn’t decorated to please her. It was full of fresh flowers, live plants, sunlight, and nooks for someone to settle into among a cozy pile of pillows and read for an afternoon.
“I’ll return shortly,” Riniken said, gathering up the reins.
“To answer your question, I awoke early. And I had the thought that it’s past time we hire more staff for the house. I did bring in that girl from the bakery to help Mrs. Carvey.”
Elliott nodded. “The butler generally does the hiring, except for those who will be directly serving members of the household. Have at it.”
“I…”
Before he could conjure a coherent objection to that, the man of business was gone down the road. James knew Riniken generally rose early, and given his bad knee it did make sense that he would prefer to go riding rather than walking for his morning constitutional.
The man should be riding Faro, the superior horse, but not much was going the way it was supposed to here at Earnhurst. James finished the apple and tossed it into the hole they’d dug for the tree that currently blocked Mabel’s view of the garden. Planting it would be the last thing they did because, even if he couldn’t say it aloud, he’d reclaimed and replanted that garden for her, and he wanted it to be a surprise.
She’d said she would enjoy going back down to the village today, so while the wagons delivered the plants, he would push her down the path to Remiton. Or better yet, since he was now a bastard brother on the verge of being introduced to Society, he could feasibly take the phaeton and they could drive into the village.
Until she’d reminded him, he’d forgotten his own visits to the bakery as a youth, or how he’d at one point decided he wanted to be a blacksmith after spending a morning watching Walter Stokes’s father, William, fashion a well-fitting set of horseshoes for his father’s big black gelding, Hermes.
When he’d first arrived at Earnhurst to prepare for his wedding, he’d thought to be bored to madness. In London there were dinner parties every night, theater, gambling, clubs, drinking, women—always something “next” on the calendar. He liked “nexts.” They kept him from thinking too much about “nows.”
Even when most of Mayfair left after the Season, there were a few holdouts, and the ones who needed to return to London for a week here or there. The quantity of distractions thinned, but they could still be found, if one looked hard enough—which he did.
As he considered it now, though, other than to fetch bottles of wine for other people’s dinners and the one he’d shared with Elliott, he hadn’t even visited the wine cellar at Earnhurst since the day Lady Sophronia and Mabel had arrived. He hadn’t missed doing so, either, which felt even more significant. Since the ladies’ arrival he felt like he hadn’t had time to sit still for more than two or three minutes together, but that hadn’t been the reason for his sobriety. No, most of his new experiences here, aside from watching the footmen polish the remaining bloody silver, had been interesting. Even enjoyable.
How would it feel, though, after the wedding? Would it be better, or worse, if Mabel stayed on once he’d gotten himself leg shackled to Lady Margaret? Devil take it, he already knew the answer to that. It would be worse, because he didn’t want Lady Margaret. He wanted Mabel.
God, he didn’t even know for certain what her real name was. Clara something, if Goodfrey had heard it right. He couldn’t put a name to the woman he longed for. The idea that her moniker could be worse than Mabel Gooster, though, made him smile. The idea of her made him smile.
So, there he sat, one of the most cynical, jaded men he’d ever met, and he’d fallen for a chit with a sunny disposition and a fondness for biscuits. And those things about her were real, no matter what her actual name might be.
He liked every moment spent in her company. He liked that she spoke to him as he imagined she would speak to anyone else in her circle of friends, with no regard for his station. Of course, as far as she knew he had no station, though at least he’d been promoted to illegitimate son of a duke. That, though, didn’t seem to matter to her, either.
He loved her. And he was promised to her friend, employer, whatever Margaret was to her.
Stomping the thin layer of mud off his work boots, he returned to the house. Riniken had shoved another responsibility at him now, and he hadn’t missed the irony of it—if he’d been himself and not the butler, the servant hiring would have been Elliott’s responsibility rather than his.
Without paying attention to where he was wandering, he found himself in the upstairs hallway outside Mabel’s bedchamber. Him, pining after any woman. Pining after a woman who could be anything from a maid to a duke’s daughter, and not caring which it was. Him, accustomed to having the pick of Mayfair, and who’d agreed to an arranged marriage because firstly, his father had wanted him to, and secondly, because he couldn’t imagine spending the remainder of his life with any of the women with whom he was already acquainted.
But now his perspective had altered. God, what a scandal it would be, to elope with a servant—or anyone else—and leave an earl’s daughter standing at the altar. The haphazard wreck he’d made of his reputation by simply being careless with it would be ground into the dirt. And he would deserve it.
In addition, Mabel would never be accepted in Mayfair, even if she did turn out to be a grand lady, because it would only matter that she wasn’t Lady Margaret Pinwell. She would be ridiculed and humiliated every time she showed her face. They would have to remain here at Earnhurst Castle all year long. What a time to discover that he did, apparently, give a damn about both his reputation and hers. Her happiness.
None of that signified, though, and none of it altered the fact that he was an engaged duke, set to marry a lady, an earl’s daughter, while Mabel would quite possibly find a nice footman the first time they went on holiday, a fellow servant who would be immediately smitten with her and make it his goal in life to see her happy.
A door opened up the hallway, and he lifted his gaze. It was only Goodfrey, thank God, toting a bowl and a towel over one arm. “You’re shaving him now?” James asked, folding his arms over his chest.
“After I practically had to put a foot on his chest to hold him down, yes. I’ve never met someone less interested in being seen to and at the same time so insistent on being tidy. It’s absolutely dismaying, really. Speaking of dismay, where is your cravat?”
“I left it in my monk’s cell. You may harass me about wearing it later.”
“Of course. I live to serve, despite the lack of appreciation I’m showed for my devout devotion to duty.”
The valet headed past him toward the servants’ stairs. Stairs he should have used just now and tended to forget existed. Squaring his shoulders, he turned to follow Goodfrey.
“Hello?” Mabel’s door banged as if someone had kicked it. “Is anyone there?”
Immediately he turned on his heel and strode to her door, shoving it open. “Is something ami—Ouch!”
“Oh, I’m sorry!” She straightened up in the bed and lowered the long stick she’d nearly gutted him with. “I didn’t expect so quick a response.”
“Why are you skewering people you call in for assistance?” he asked, rubbing his chest where she’d jabbed him.
“I’m not. This is my knocking stick, so I can attract someone’s attention if I’m stuck in bed.”
“You should call it your poking stick. I’m fairly certain it’s lethal.”
She leaned it against the headboard. “I only meant to ask for a cup of tea. It wouldn’t be at all proper if I murdered someone to get it.”
James grinned. “There are times I would have murdered for a glass of whiskey, but I see your point. And knocking stick does sound more genteel. I’ll fetch your tea for you.”
“Thank you, James. I’ve been awake for an hour, listening for someone to walk by so I could bang on my door. I can’t reach the bellpull, and I shouldn’t be using that, anyway. It would offend the staff.”
“I doubt that. They all like you, and they certainly understand that you’re not very mobile.” And they’d all been instructed to do whatever she asked of them, anyway. “I’ll have something put together for you.”
He hoped she hadn’t been listening for passersby very closely. Nothing in her expression made him think she’d become suspicious of anything, though, and he and Goodfrey had kept their conversation to a low mutter. They would have to remember to be more careful, however, especially once additional servants arrived. He’d rather mislead them for a week than have to explain the entire situation to strangers and expect none of them to make a mistake.
Downstairs, Mrs. Carvey hadn’t yet arrived in the kitchen, and for a moment he contemplated waking her. Heating water and pouring it into a teapot, though, seemed something even he could manage. The kettle sat, half full already, on the stove, and he squatted down to throw in some kindling and stir the banked fire about with a stick until flames appeared.
That done, he found one of the teapots, of which the house evidently owned several dozen, and a matching cup and saucer and a bowl for sugar and a bowl for cream. Mabel liked a great deal of cream and sugar in her tea, he knew. Then he had to find the lumped sugar and transfer some to the absurdly small bowl. A large pot of honey caught his eye, and he took possession of that as well, then went to find the cream in the cold pantry downstairs by the wine cellar.
He stuck his finger into one of the jars and tasted it. “Ugh.” Sour milk. The next one was buttermilk, which wasn’t much tastier, but the third held a small portion of cream which he managed to pour into the delicate little cream server.
Once the boiling water went into the teapot along with the tea leaves and he’d set it out next to the cup and saucer and all the other accoutrements, James pulled a tray off a shelf and set it on the worktable. God’s sake. He’d just put together a tea service. True, he hadn’t found the little sugar tongs and had settled for a dinner spoon, and nothing was as neat as what he was accustomed to seeing placed before him, but there it was.
For a moment he wondered what Mabel Gooster would say if she ever discovered that the Duke of Earnhurst had made tea for her. After she punched him in the head she would more than likely be mortified, embarrassed at some of the conversations they’d had, and then, hopefully, amused. It was ridiculous, after all.
He picked up the tray and headed back upstairs. In her presence, the mess and chaos of Earnhurst seemed manageable. Easier. It was larger than that, though. The sun shone brighter, flowers smelled sweeter, and the day passed more quickly when he was in Mabel’s company.
For a man who bored easily and who prided himself on being able to assess someone’s character in a matter of seconds, he remained… off balance, as if the world had ever-so-slightly tilted. And oddly enough, he liked it. He liked the breathlessness, the anticipation, of a conversation with her. Of just looking at her. Hell, he’d made her tea.
“I’m coming in,” he announced. “Do I need to close my eyes?”
“If you wish, but I don’t advise it.”
With a grin he stepped into the bedchamber. She’d fluffed up the mountain of pillows behind her so she could sit upright in bed, both feet still tucked cozily beneath the covers. Her straight black hair lay loose around her shoulders, uncombed and pleasingly disheveled. “Mrs. Carvey wasn’t yet about, so I attempted this myself,” he said, setting the tray on the table and then pushing the table up to the edge of the bed.
“I would protest that you needn’t have gone to such trouble, but I really want some tea.” Reaching over, she spooned several lumps of sugar into the cup. “Oh, honey?”
“You’ll have to use the sugar spoon for it,” he commented, trading the sugar bowl for the honey pot so she could reach it. “I didn’t know you liked honey in your tea.”
“I adore honey in my tea. Even more than sugar.” She smiled up at him, her blue eyes still sleepy.
From now on, she would have honey available for her tea. “Do you still want to go down to Remiton again today? I thought we could take the phaeton, unless you want to risk me tipping you over into the daisies again.”
Mabel laughed as she went about preparing her tea. “I must have that bonnet we spied in the milliner’s window. A few shrubberies can’t keep me from it.”
“Very well, then.” He shifted, deciding it would be ridiculous for him to stand there and watch her drink a cup of tea even though he was inclined to do so. “I’ll fetch you in two hours, say? Is that sufficient time to breakfast and dress?”
“To go for a carriage ride I would roll myself down the stairs and crawl,” she said. “Thank you so much for saving me.”
James lifted an eyebrow. “Saving you?”
“With the tea.”
“Ah.” Now if he could only save himself as easily. The only way he could see to do that, though, would be to break the marriage agreement.
He paused out in the hallway again, his breath catching.
Could he do it? Such a simple thing, and yet so complicated. It would be like shooting a cannonball into the middle of Mayfair.
He could hear his father demanding that he do his duty and damn the consequences. In this instance, the consequences would be a miserable life in which he resented his bride every damned day because of who she wasn’t. If he refused to go through with this madness, though, it meant ruination—and if he and the rest of them survived that, a measure of… peace? Freedom? That wasn’t very likely.
He wouldn’t come out well, certainly, though he could blame Lady Margaret for his refusal, cite her deception in coming here disguised as someone else. He could mention that she’d been flirting with his man of business, but he wouldn’t do so. By the time all the lies were unraveled and fed to the gossips, no one would be unscathed. But then all he would have to do was elope with Mabel and stay with her at Earnhurst for the rest of their lives.
If there was no Society, there would be no one to snub her. As for Lady Margaret, her reputation would be badly damaged, but he did happen to know a man of business who seemed badly smitten with her. If he couldn’t shoulder enough of the blame to keep her from ruin—which he would attempt to do because Mabel would wish it—then at least she would still have one male admirer. Because he would do anything for Mabel, including putting a torch to what remained of his reputation.
No, it wasn’t ideal. Yes, people would be hurt. People who didn’t deserve such injury. What he needed, though, was to speak with Elliott Riniken. And he didn’t mean to wait until this evening to do it. This was no longer a matter of “if things were different.” It was a matter of how much longer he could tolerate waiting.