Page 8 of Don’t Let Your Dukes Grow Up To Be Scoundrels (Dukes in Disguise #1)

Chapter Eight

When the old wagon piled with damask-cushioned chairs and ornate bedframes rolled into the courtyard of Five Mile House, Lucy knew she shouldn’t have been surprised to see her older sister beaming from her perch beside the driver.

Who was, of course, none other than the exceedingly handsome barman who’d thrown Gemma into such a tizzy on their arrival.

Of course. Of course , Gemma had managed to bring him round to her side and somehow dragoon him into fetching and carrying for her.

Lucy considered herself something of an expert on her older sister’s wiles and ways, after careful study of her exploits in the scandal sheets. Returning from a morning call with a load of furnishings driven by a grumpy barkeep was quite in the normal run of things one might expect from the lady who’d once been called “entirely too lively for Polite Society.”

That was the sort of thing that passed for wit in most of the scandal sheets. Lucy sniffed. She could do better, and one day, she would.

“Lucy,” Gemma trilled, waving a gloved hand toward the wagon. “Come see, we’ve the most beautiful things here to make over the inn!”

In the ensuing chaos of unloading the cart and hearing all about the absent Duke of Havilocke and his unknowing generosity in lending out his belongings to a family of total strangers, Lucy noticed that Mr. Deveril had lost the cheeky grin he’d met them with the day before. It had been replaced by a distinctly brooding air that, she had to admit, suited him.

He kept casting those dark, smoldering glances at Gemma, who was pretending not to notice but in fact was keenly aware, if the feverish color in her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes was anything to go by.

Lucy’s internal gossip hound pricked up its ears and scented the air. She frowned as she moved to grab the bridle of the enormous brown draft horse while Mr. Deveril handed Gemma down and circled to the back of the wagon to begin unloading.

It had been many years since Lucy could claim an intimate, personal connection with her stylish, high-flying older sister. Stuck in the schoolroom and hemmed about with governesses and chaperones, Lucy had been barred from tagging along after Gemma the way she had when she was small.

Even parents as wrapped up in each other as theirs tended to frown on the idea of a girl spending her first Season in the sort of gambling hells, salons, and routs favored by the dissolute aristocrats Gemma ran with. Lucy wasn’t even supposed to be aware of most of the places Gemma went, and no one would tell her anything about what Gemma got up to.

To this day, Lucy wasn’t at all sure their parents had even been aware of the smallest portion of what Gemma got up to.

Incurably curious, Lucy had taken to scouring the newspapers for coy items about her sister’s antics. She read every gossip column she could lay her hands upon—her favorite was the one in the London Observator . She perused the society pamphlets devoted to detailing the movements of the Ton. She studied the satirical prints displayed in the windows of the booksellers and print shops along the Strand. And through them, she became better acquainted with her sister.

“Is yet another broken engagement in the offing for the Liveliest of ladies? We are beginning to lose count, dear reader, but we would put this as the fifth! We begin to fear wedding bells will never ring for Lady G---…”

“The Countess of R---‘s rout last night was such a crush, poor Lady P--- swooned in the retiring room and had to be carried out to the terrace for fresh air. Lady G---, eldest daughter of the Duke of A---, cleared the way to the balcony doors by climbing atop the buffet table and proposing a toast to the hostess of the evening. Said toast involved a clever pun with the hostess’s name and a certain portion of a lady’s limb below the knee, which Lady G--- was kind enough to illustrate by lifting her skirts. Needless to say, the entire masculine half of the ballroom flocked to her side instantly, leaving a path across the ballroom floor for the lady recovering from her faint. One wonders if there exists any occasion solemn enough to prevent that Lively lady from exposing herself publicly.”

“Lady G--- L----, resplendent in a smart plum-coloured riding habit with matching plum velvet bonnet trimmed in gold brocade with two tassels, seen racing her bay mare against a laughing, enchanted Earl of W---. The lady won, to the consternation of a nearby group of disapproving matrons and the jeering friends of the earl, many of whom appeared to have lost large sums of money from the wagers they’d placed on the outcome of said race. Lady G--- graciously refused her winnings, to general rejoicing.”

Lucy wished they had some portion of those winnings back from Gemma’s admirers now. Maybe then they wouldn’t have had to leave London for this boring village where the biggest scandal she’d encountered on her walk was her own lack of chaperone.

Well, that wasn’t precisely true. Lucy’s heart fluttered as she remembered what the miller’s daughter had told her. Such an interesting rumor, and one that might actually help Gemma put Five Mile House on the map, if they were clever about it…

Not that anyone here cared what Lucy thought. Lucy glanced from her sister, absorbed in directing which pieces of furniture should go where, all the way up to the top floor of the inn, at the window where they’d left their mother sitting, wrapped in her grief. Henrietta hadn’t left her rooms all day, all her usual bubbly vivaciousness sadly deflated.

A pang of loneliness stabbed at Lucy’s chest. She missed chatting about the latest on-dits with her friends. She missed her lady’s maid, Stephens, and her governess, Miss Lyons. She missed all the people who’d filled her life and kept her from noticing too much that her parents and sister never seemed to be at home.

The carriage ride from London to Little Kissington was the longest time she’d spent in the company of her mother and sister since Lucy could remember. It had been awkward, to say the least. But if she was honest with herself, it had also been just the tiniest bit…nice. Being all together like that.

The draft horse dropped its head to nudge Lucy’s shoulder with a soft bump, blowing out warm air that tickled Lucy’s neck and made her smile. At the back of the wagon, Gemma and Mr. Deveril were arguing over which items to remove first and where they should go in the inn. Lucy considered intervening, but it was honestly more interesting to observe them.

She’d never understood that hackneyed phrase about sparks flying between two people before.

Lucy had many opportunities of observing the spirited bickering between her sister and Mr. Deveril over the next few days. From the moment they hauled the first stick of furniture inside, it had been a ceaseless whirl of cleaning, tidying, and arranging. Lucy wished the gossip columnists could see Gemma now—they’d get the shock of their lives, witnessing “London’s Liveliest Lady” on her knees in a dingy corridor, wild curls bundled under a red scarf that wound around her nose and over her mouth to keep out the dust she was stirring up with her scrub brush.

Lucy, self-proclaimed expert on Lady Gemma Lively, never would’ve predicted this.

Not that Lucy herself had any current claims to elegance, she noted with a rueful glance down at her oldest, shortest dress. The blue dimity was now liberally splotched with the cloudy water full of grated potato she was sponging over the worst stains on the hearth rugs, a remedy Bess swore by but about which Lucy was experiencing some doubt.

Even Mama had been put to work polishing the silver pieces Gemma had pilfered from the big house on the hill. Mama hadn’t complained, though she paused after each candlestick and butter dish to sigh and stare out the window.

Lucy couldn’t help thinking her mother looked all the better for having some occupation for her hands other than wringing them sorrowfully.

And through it all, Hal Deveril was there, moving couches and bedsteads, hefting heavy rolled-up carpets onto carpet stands for beating, and watching Gemma with that intense focus that gave Lucy a shivery feeling in her middle.

She didn’t think she’d like it if a man looked at her like that. Or maybe she would—it was impossible to know.

In any case, Lucy reminded herself, it was unlikely to happen. Men tended not to notice the stick-skinny little sister when her glamorous older sister was around. Especially since Lucy had grown another inch or two since her last fitting at the modiste, and now all of her dresses were just slightly too short. Instead of being risqué, however, she knew the effect was much more of a gangly, awkward child.

She looked as if she ought to be wearing her hair in pigtails and playing knucklebones.

Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing to have Gemma’s curvaceous shadow to hide in, Lucy told herself as she blew a lock of dark hair out of her eyes and stretched her aching back. At least until their fortunes turned enough to buy her a new, grown-up gown.

In the meanwhile, maybe it was time to let these rugs dry while she went to ask if Bess needed any help in the kitchen. Breakfast felt so long ago, and perhaps she’d know something more about that little tidbit Lucy had heard in the village, which she couldn’t stop thinking about. It had only been a few days, but Bess had quickly established herself as an excellent source of local information.

Lucy really ought to tell Gemma what she’d heard from the miller’s daughter about the rumors of a gentleman highwayman terrorizing the Bath Road, she mused as her older sister rose to her feet and pulled the scarf down to her neck to drink from the glass of water Mr. Deveril handed her. Gemma was watching him over the rim of her glass, and he stared back as though he envied the cup against her lips.

They probably wouldn’t have noticed Lucy if she stripped naked and started dancing the tarantella in the middle of the hall.

Perhaps she’d keep her bit of gossip to herself for a bit longer, she decided.

* * *

“Five Mile House is beginning to take shape,” Gemma announced, standing back to survey the laundered and mended curtains she’d just hung over the windows flanking the front door into the taproom.

Bess nodded, the serene glow of her countenance somehow only enhanced by the exertion of their chores that morning. She’d helped steady the wobbly stepladder while Gemma stretched precariously up to fix the heavy curtain rod in place. Gemma was determined not to reflect on how much more enjoyable that situation might have been, had Hal been the one kneeling at her feet and putting up his big, strong hands to catch her when she leaned too far and nearly fell off the stool…

Gemma shook the idle longing from her head. Hal wasn’t at the Five Mile today as he’d been called out early to help with something called rogation, having to do with beating fences with sticks? Gemma wasn’t certain. All she knew was that things happened in the country that she never could have imagined in her former life.

But then, it had been a long week of doing all sorts of things Gemma could never have imagined herself doing in her former life.

She, who had once spent hours sitting perfectly still as her maid arranged her elegant coiffure, had barely had a moment off her feet since they brought the furnishings down from the big house, as everyone here referred to the ducal residence.

Along with Bess and her sister, Gemma had been over the Five Mile from top to bottom, attacking cobwebs and arranging rugs and wall hangings strategically to cover water stains and cracks in the plaster.

There were bruises on her knees from scrubbing floors, and her fingers were cracked and sore from repeated applications of harsh soap and vinegar-water.

Yes, there had been a little light screaming when she’d reached up the chimney to try to discover the source of the blockage that made it smoke, and an ancient bird nest dropped onto her head, nestling there like a decoration on one of Henrietta’s more bizarre bonnets; there had been the odd bout of jumping onto furniture when shaking out the wall hangings dislodged a family of mice from their nest. But on the whole, Gemma felt she had survived the week with her sanity (if not her dignity) intact, and the changes they’d wrought in Five Mile House made it all worth it.

And of course, the fact that she’d been so terribly busy meant she hadn’t had a moment to dwell on what it felt like to be kissed and caressed in an open field by Hal Deveril.

Well. Hardly a moment, anyway.

“I’m not sure what more we can do to make this old place sparkle,” Bess commented, dusting her hands on her coarse linen apron. “Mrs. Givens was saying last night she’d never seen it looking finer! I think everyone in the village has dropped by in the past few days to see the changes.”

“Hmm. I’m sure that’s not all they were hoping to get a look at,” Gemma grumbled.

“True enough,” Bess agreed, with the calm good cheer that had endeared her to Gemma throughout their miserable labors this week. No task was beyond Bess, and nothing seemed to jolt her from her steady and good-natured competence. It might have annoyed Gemma if she hadn't been so grateful for it.

“You and your family are the most interesting thing to happen in Little Kissington since the new parson came last year,” Bess continued as she bent to gather their cleaning supplies into a bucket to carry downstairs. “You can’t blame people for being curious.”

“I know. And I don’t want to appear standoffish, but there’s been so much to do. And it’s just been…nice, I suppose, not to be a spectacle for once.”

She had asked that Bess let the locals know that her mother was unwell and therefore the family was keeping very private, to forestall any gossip about the newest residents of Little Kissington being too high in the instep to mingle with their neighbors at the pub they owned.

“It’ll be a nine days’ wonder,” Bess predicted, handing the mop and dustpan to Gemma to carry. “Once folk get a chance to meet you and your family, they’ll become accustomed to you. Though, in fairness, the sight of a well-born ladyship like yourself holding a mop—and knowing how to use it!—is a bit of a spectacle.”

Brandishing the mop like a sword, Gemma gave a rueful laugh. “Oh, if my friends could see me now. How they would laugh!”

“I hope you’re not ashamed of the work you’ve done here,” Bess said, her tone a little sharper than Gemma had heard from her before.

“Good gracious, no,” Gemma protested as they clattered down the stairs. “I now believe every member of the aristocracy ought to be required to scour a privy before inheriting any wealth. They’d be all the better for it.”

“If it’s not too bold of me to say, I didn’t think you’d stick it out after that first day. But you surprised me, my lady.”

“I surprised myself,” Gemma said. “And please, we’ve swept up mouse droppings together. Surely that puts us on intimate terms. Call me Gemma.”

A flush of pleasure brought out the roses in Bess’s milkmaid complexion. “Gemma, then.”

The two women grinned at each other as they stowed the stepladder and cleaning supplies in the cupboard under the stairs.

“Have I thanked you for your help this week?” Gemma asked suddenly. “I should have. I never could have managed without you. Not only your wisdom on how to attack any stain known to man, but also your…Bessness.”

Bess laughed, merry as a brook burbling through a wooded glen. “My Bessness!”

“Yes, your indefinable way of being so utterly perfect all the time!” Gemma gestured up and down the other woman’s tidy figure, her perfect curves highlighted prettily by the tightly knotted sash of her oatmeal-colored apron. “You have a knack for accepting people as they are, I think. And it makes you a very restful person to be around.”

“What a lovely compliment.” Bess smoothed her hands down her skirts, dropping her gaze. She almost seemed flustered. “I find that most people only want to be seen for who they are. A good deal of mischief is made in this world by folk pretending to be something they’re not.”

Gemma pushed open the kitchen door and collapsed into one of the hard-backed wooden chairs as if it were cushioned in damask stuffed with goose down. “Good heavens. How early it still is, and I already feel all done in.”

“What you want is a nice rest,” Bess advised, her quick, light steps never slowing or faltering as she moved about the kitchen to begin her next series of tasks. Gemma watched her graceful and purposeful movements and felt, for the hundredth time that week, as if she’d only recently woken up from a dreamlike daze to finally see the world as it truly was.

The amount of backbreaking physical labor that went into sustaining a simple, everyday life was astonishing. And the proportion of that work that was done by women, toiling unseen in sculleries and kitchens and washrooms…Gemma blinked hard and let out a heavy breath.

She’d never be able to take a spotless floor for granted again, now that she knew what it took to get it clean.

“A rest,” she repeated absently, then shook her head. “Oh no, I couldn’t. I need to go check on Mama. She is behaving so unlike herself, I’m truly concerned. I wonder how we could tempt her to come downstairs.”

“What about a party?” Bess suggested, plunging her arms into a trough of flour, water, salt, and yeast to be folded and pounded into shaggy, sticky bread dough. “That would be a good way to introduce your family to the village, and meet everyone all at once. And today is Rogation Day, after all.”

Gemma bit her lip. “Can we afford a party? And what exactly is Rogation Day?”

“Some people call it beating the bounds. The men of the parish walk the boundaries of the land and hit certain landmarks with sticks, to remind everyone where the boundary lines are. They start from Kissington Manor, make the big circuit around the county landmarks, and end here at Five Mile House. It used to be that everyone in the village brought what they could contribute to make a big feast, and there was a lot of merry making! I remember it taking all day and the party lasting well into the night. But that was a long time ago. When I was a very little girl.”

“That sounds like a lovely tradition,” Gemma exclaimed. “Why did it change?”

Bess’s pretty face darkened for a moment. “People haven’t had the funds, or the heart, to contribute to a fête of any sort. The last Duke of Havilocke raised his tenants’ rents so high, people struggled to put food on the table, much less put a celebration together. But the new duke has made some changes, and I think folk around here are feeling a mite less pinched. I reckon if we put out the word that the Five Mile will host and provide the ale and cider, and maybe a roast, the people will come!”

Gemma thought it over. In her blessedly brief experience of physical labor, she already felt deeply that people who worked hard ought to have every opportunity to enjoy themselves.

She disliked the notion of a greedy landowner squeezing all the fun out of the village. These people deserved a little fun, more than anyone she’d ever met. Perhaps the budget could stretch to cover it, especially if she dipped into their meager savings from the sale of Mama’s ruby bracelet. “I’m glad the new duke is proving to be less of a villain than the last one.”

“Well, as to that, he’s got his flaws,” Bess hedged, brushing hair out of her eyes with the back of a floury hand and leaving a white streak across her forehead. “But he’s trying, and that’s something.”

A plan was beginning to take form in Gemma’s mind. She stood and brushed her hands down her skirts. “Well, regardless, I think the people of Little Kissington deserve a rotation to remember!”

“Rogation,” Bess corrected her with a laugh. “But how will we let the villagers know the plan so we can get all the food here in time?”

Fired with excitement, Gemma pondered it with glee. What a perfect way to introduce herself and her family to the locals that would ensure the popularity of the Lively women and announce the new management of Five Mile House to the countryside at large.

“Don’t worry, Bess. Lucy and I will make the rounds and invite the whole village! By the time Hal and the other men are back from whacking things with sticks, we will have such a surprise waiting for them!”