Page 3 of A Tale of Two Dukes

Jumping to her feet, the Duchess had relieved her feelings by striding energetically up and down the small chamber, skirts swishing furiously.

Eventually, she turned and blurted out, ‘The audacity! The damnable audacity of the man!’ She seized up the paper and pressed it into Emily’s hands, saying, ‘Read it! Only read it. Do not speak a word of censure till you have done so, or you will never get to the end. “Warm recollections of our earlier acquaintance,” he says! Oh, I am so angry!’

It was a bolt out of the blue, from someone she had not set eyes on for an age.

When she had known him, he had been merely Mr Richard Armstrong, younger half-brother of Mr Tarquin Armstrong.

Tarquin was, before the birth of her sons, her husband’s nearest male relation and heir.

Edward had loathed Tarquin and never seen him if he could help it, but Richard had been a frequent visitor to the Duke of Winterflood’s home from his youth, so Viola had encountered him a few months after her marriage.

That had been long ago, when his prospects for advancement were non-existent and he had worked for a living, in trade, despite his noble connections.

But a curious quirk of English custom had made him Lord Ventris earlier this summer.

Emily had read the news of his elevation to the peerage in the paper one day, and had innocently exclaimed over it, asking if the gentleman in question was not the late Duke’s cousin, as the surname was the same.

Viola had confirmed that this was true, and told her lightly that Tarquin must be quite furious at the intelligence; he was a jealous-natured, bitter man who had through her own marriage and pregnancy been thwarted of the dukedom he had so long expected to inherit, and now his disreputable younger brother had had a barony and an estate fall into his undeserving lap.

Yet Tarquin was still a plain mister with no title and no fortune to speak of, and no chance of either. Or – not if her sons lived.

Tarquin and Richard had shared a father but not a mother, and this was the crucial point she had had to explain to her puzzled friend.

The Duchess knew, and the newspaper article confirmed, that Richard’s mother had been the youngest daughter of an ancient Border family, whose title by writ could descend through the female line.

His mother’s oldest sister, lacking brothers, had therefore been Lady Ventris in her own right.

When she had died without issue or a sibling living to succeed her, her nephew had stepped into her shoes.

He had found himself owner of a castle on a cliff and a great deal of windswept, empty moorland, home chiefly, the London gossip said, to sheep and red deer and scarce but surly inhabitants.

It was the sort of place that bred hardiness and independence of spirit in all ranks of society.

What would a man of his dark reputation find to do there?

Viola had assumed that Lady Ventris, that great lady of the north, had left her fortune, gained through shrewd marriage alliances, to Richard too; where else would she think to leave it?

But the letter she had received told her – along with much more outrageous content – that this was not quite correct.

Richard’s irreverent personality came strongly from the page – it was like speaking with him again after so many years. Whether this was a pleasant sensation for her was quite another matter.

When Emily had finished reading, mild blue eyes growing rounder and rounder with every paragraph, she had asked if Lord Ventris was quite mad, so peculiar did the missive appear to her.

Even the gentle governess could not wonder at her friend’s anger on receiving it.

But Emily had never met Richard, and Viola, who had, knew that whatever else he might be, he wasn’t deranged.

My dear madam,

It is a long time since we saw each other, and I trust you and the boys are well. I am sure they will be grown tall and strong by now, true Armstrongs in their father’s image. I know Edward would have been so proud of them, and of you as their mother.

You will, I am sure, be aware of my accession to the Ventris title in my Aunt Alice’s place.

I gather it was quite a sensation in the polite world.

You might perhaps have presumed, if you thought about me on hearing the news, that I fell heir to the lady’s substantial financial assets also, but alas, it is not so. Or at least, not yet.

Aunt’s heir was always to be my older cousin, Simon, son of another aunt now sadly deceased.

Simon was in holy orders, and a person of whom she greatly approved, and furthermore, had recently engaged himself to be married to a Yorkshire-woman of equally tedious and conspicuous virtue.

Every time I met Aunt Ventris of late years, she was pleased to dwell at length on the distinction between Simon’s manner of life and my own, to my enormous disadvantage.

But poor, dull Simon was carried off by an inflammation of the lungs this last winter, still sadly unwed, and she was left, to her horror, with me.

She did not refrain from telling me that she wished that Providence had seen fit to strike down my unworthy person instead of him.

No doubt she had a stern word with Providence on the subject too; she was a very grand lady and I am sure they were upon terms.

Feeling her end approaching, my aunt summoned her lawyer and drew up a codicil to her will.

Wherever she is now (of which I am by no means certain), she must be chuckling at her own cleverness.

She could not keep the estate’s lands from me, nor the name and title, but since her fortune came to her by marriage, she was free to dispose of it as she wished.

And what she wished was to say that I might have it all with her blessing, as long as by my thirty-fifth birthday, I should be married and the father of a child.

One small mercy is that she was not so inconsiderate as to specify the sex of the infant.

You may or may not recollect that I shall achieve that great age in eighteen months’ time.

I have now in my unworthy hands – you will appreciate the irony – a very large estate comprising many of the most inhospitable sections of the north of England, and scarcely a penny to maintain it, nor the ancient castle set upon it.

If I wish to prevent everything falling into utter ruin, I must induce some unfortunate female to marry me very soon.

This lady must then embark upon the chancy enterprise of attempting to conceive a child and bring it safe into the world, in the full knowledge that if she does not do so in very short order, through no fault of her own, she will live out the rest of her life penniless, and burdened with me as a husband into the bargain, in a crumbling castle in the middle of a howling wilderness.

I know my reputation is not the most shining, but I find in myself an odd scruple that may make you smile: I cannot ask anyone to marry me without revealing these uncomfortable particulars to her.

I have not yet run about London looking for sufficiently desperate women, and I hope I never am obliged to do so, but I have no confidence at all in finding one prepared to take me on those terms.

Naturally, then, my thoughts turned to you, Duchess.

(Admit, if only to yourself, that you knew that this was where all my elaborate preliminaries were leading.) I do not wish to be indelicate, but you are notoriously – even proverbially – fecund.

To the wonder of all the world, you gave my cousin Edward two fine sons within two years of your marriage to him, when his previous unions had both been childless.

Is it too crude to hope that you might do the same for me – with me?

Viola, will you marry me?

You will say – I can almost hear you saying it, dark eyes flashing splendidly – that I offer you no incentive.

Why should you be different from any other woman who has the sense to think me a terrible bargain?

But you are, your grace, because we can discuss this matter openly and honestly.

If between us we cannot fulfil the conditions of my aunt’s ridiculous testament, you will not be obliged to stay with me.

I am all too aware that eighteen months is not so very long.

Winterflood is your home, and I have no power or wish to take it from you.

Even if we do succeed in our endeavours, I will not think of forcing you to remain with me if you do not desire to.

You may make any stipulations as to your future that you care to, and I swear I will honour them.

I am sure that your boys are now of an age to need a father – a stepfather, at least, since no one can truly take Edward’s place.

I presume that one of the reasons a woman so lovely and so desirable in every way has not remarried is because you fear bringing a stranger into your sons’ home as some poor substitute for my cousin.

That too would be a chancy business. But you have my solemn assurance that I will care for them as if they were my own, if you let me, whether we give them siblings or not.

I would do so for poor Edward’s sake, for yours, and for theirs too.

I do not suppose you will receive this letter with any great joy, but I beg you to consider it very seriously.

My offer, clumsy as it is, may well prove a lifeline for us both.

I know you always preferred the word with no bark upon it, so I have not attempted to honey any part of my damnably awkward situation – or, for that matter, yours.

Give me at least some credit for not making protestations of love that you would treat with the contempt that they deserved.

With continuing esteem, and warm recollections of our earlier acquaintance,

I remain yours,

Richard Armstrong, Baron Ventris