Page 9 of Don’t Let Your Dukes Grow Up To Be Scoundrels (Dukes in Disguise #1)

Chapter Nine

Gemma and Lucy set out at once from the yard of Five Mile House, dressed in their nicest walking outfits and ready to charm some townspeople.

Henrietta had declined, yet again, to leave her rooms. Gemma was beginning to worry that her mother would have lost the strength to stand by the time she was finally ready to try it. At least Henrietta had roused herself to exclaim over her daughters’ appearance—that was perhaps some evidence of improved spirits. She hadn’t previously seemed to notice that her daughters were no longer wearing black.

“You’re not in mourning,” she had cried, black lace fluttering and jet beads clacking in her agitation. “Lucy, go back to your chamber at once and put on something black.”

Gemma had wrapped a staying arm round her sister’s shoulders. “Mama, that is not possible. Lucy has outgrown the one black crepe gown we managed to fit for her before horrid Nathaniel cut off our funds, and we haven’t the money yet to buy more. Besides, it’s been nearly three months since Father passed away—that is a perfectly respectable time for Lucy and me to move into half-mourning. You can go the full year if you wish, of course.”

“I shall wear nothing but black for the rest of my days, to honor my beloved Benedict,” Henrietta declared, waving her black-edged handkerchief at them as though bidding them farewell. Her brief moment of animation was already passing, sinking her back into the deep waters of her grief. “But I suppose you may do as you like, Gemma. Just as you always do.”

Gemma had ground her back teeth in frustration, but had managed to keep from bursting out with the truth: that of course she might wish to take another three months, or even longer, to wear solemn black and abstain from social engagements of all kinds.

But they hadn’t the time for that.

Gemma was keenly aware of the need to be engaging socially, so she could find an acceptably wealthy, well born suitor and convince him to propose. The sooner she began her search, the sooner she would forget all about her ill-advised attraction to Hal.

She needed to keep her mind on her stratagems, and not on the contents of Hal’s tight buckskin trousers.

“There is to be a party here this afternoon, Mama, and I hope you will come down and greet our guests,” Gemma said, laying the groundword. She steered Lucy toward the door, but Lucy broke away from her.

As Gemma watched from the doorway, Lucy knelt by their mother’s low chair and put her arms around Henrietta. “Mama, please, won’t you come with us? The fresh air would do you good, and we could show you all the work we’ve done on the inn since we arrived. It looks quite different outside these walls, you know!”

But Henrietta had only shaken her head slowly. With one trembling hand, she absently patted at Lucy’s arm. “Goodbye, dear. Have a nice time at the party.”

Lucy got to her feet. “Say you’ll come to the party, too, Mama. Please.”

She waited a moment for a response Gemma could have told her was never going to come, then trudged over to the doorway with her shoulders slumped and her head drooping like a wilted tulip.

With the resilience of youth, Lucy had perked up and led the way to the main village thoroughfare. They put on bright smiles, shook hands, and issued invitations to every man, woman, child, and shopkeeper they encountered. Most received the news of a Rogation Day celebration with real pleasure, and promised a cake or buns or other treat to add to the feast table.

As they reached the end of the shops and cottages that ringed the village square and crossed Westcote Bridge, heading toward the farms and homesteads dotted about the countryside surrounding Little Kissington, silence stretched between the sisters.

It hadn’t been all that many years since Gemma was the same age as Lucy, although in many ways it felt like another lifetime. It was odd to find herself so uncertain how to broach a conversation with her own sister now.

As they walked along the hard-packed dirt road, Gemma remembered the cheerful little whirlwind Lucy had been as a toddler. She used to run after Gemma and clutch at her skirts to be included in games and pursuits she was far to small to enjoy. Nothing had deterred her, and Gemma had always given in with a laugh, pulling the much younger girl up on her horse with her, or showing her how to bowl the ball across the lawn so that it hit the jack on the first try.

Then Gemma had made her debut. She’d learned what Society thought of a girl born to a scandalous union between a duke and a nursery maid. And shortly thereafter, she’d devoted herself to scandalizing the Almack’s patronesses while dazzling the racy set into crowning her their unofficial queen. She’d barely been home for more than the time it took to sleep and dress since.

In an attempt to bridge the silent chasm between them, Gemma asked, “Have you heard much from your friends back home yet?”

“No.”

Gemma frowned. “I thought they were meant to be sending you those gossip pages you love to read.”

Lucy shrugged a sullen shoulder. “Why should they? I haven’t written to them.”

Gemma was starting to remember another characteristic she herself had also exhibited at this age. Intractable sulkiness. “Why on earth not?”

Shrugging again, Lucy ignored her in favor of settling her bonnet more firmly on her head. The early afternoon sun trickled through the brilliantly green branches with their profusion of new leaves and buds, arching over the wide road like a cathedral.

“You should write to them,” Gemma advised as she stepped around a deep rut, glad that she’d worn a pair of sturdy kid half-boots rather than silk slippers this time. “You’ve been working so hard. You’ll feel all the better for remembering you have a life outside of this place; that is what will make all these difficulties worth the trouble, in the end.”

“I don’t want to write to them.”

Patience thinning, Gemma shook her head to dislodge a buzzing bumble bee from the brim of her caramel-colored straw hat . “Fine. Then don’t. But then do not be surprised when you continue to feel miserable.”

“I’m not miserable!”

“You certainly aren’t happy.”

“Ugh, I’m fine, Gemma! Not everyone can be happy all the time!”

“Certainly not with that attitude.” Gemma huffed. “I’ve always found that happiness takes a lot more effort than most people wish to expend.”

“Is that what I should tell Mama?” Lucy snapped, crossing her arms over her stomach. “I’m sure she’d love to know that she needs only work harder to make herself happy, rather than wasting away in that room.”

The ever-present worry for her mother raked claws of guilt across Gemma’s heart. “That’s different. Mama is grieving.”

“Well, so am I!”

Gemma sighed, shoulders slumping. “I know. Between Ashbourn throwing us out of our home and all the work we’re doing here, we’ve hardly had time to mourn Father.”

“I don’t mean for Father,” Lucy burst out, then flushed. “I mean, of course. For Father as well. But I’m also quite angry with him? Which feels…awful. But how could he do this? How could he leave us like this, with no way to live? Why didn’t he take care of us?”

Did we mean so little to him?

Gemma flinched at the words Lucy didn’t say, as they echoed through her mind as loudly as anything her sister had cried aloud. It was passing strange to hear her own thoughts on Lucy’s lips, the things Gemma had grieved and fretted and silently cursed over in the dead of night.

The pressure of saying the correct thing to help her sister through this weighed on Gemma’s tired shoulders. “Do you remember how much Father loved to dance?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“He wanted us to love it too. Remember?”

An unwilling smile tugged at the corner of Lucy’s mouth. “And when our dancing instructor was caught dallying with one of the scullery maids, Father took over and taught us himself.”

Gemma breathed out, recalling the afternoon sunlight slanting in through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the empty ballroom at Ashbourn House, clapping and laughing as Lucy stood on the toes of their Father’s shiny Hessians and let him whirl her about. “He cared for us deeply, you know. In his own way.”

“Sometimes I wish his way had been a bit less fun and a bit more practical.” Lucy sniffled.

While Gemma silently agreed, aloud she said, “We will get our life back. I promise.”

“You mean, you will.” Lucy pulled away looking suspiciously red about the eyes. “I want to help.”

“You are helping,” Gemma protested. “We’d never have gotten the Five Mile this far along without all the work you’ve done.”

“I could’ve done more, though,” Lucy admitted, biting her lip. She darted a look up at Gemma from under the thick fringe of her lashes. “I didn’t tell you what I heard about in the village.”

Gemma frowned slightly. She vaguely remembered sending Lucy out to scour the town for gossip days ago, but she hadn’t truly expected much to come of it. “Oh? Anything that can help us?”

Shrugging, Lucy ducked her head. “I don’t know. Maybe. There’s apparently a highwayman on the loose?”

Gemma blinked. She hadn’t been expecting that. But before she could come up with a reply, Lucy burst out, “But that’s my point, you didn’t even ask what I’d found out. No one listens to me. I’d wager my friends haven’t even noticed I’m gone.”

A small part of Gemma would have liked to roll her eyes at her sister’s adolescent melodrama. Not for the first time, Gemma wished they had the sort of mother who would be able to lend a guiding hand in a moment like this. But as sweet as Henrietta was, she’d never been much good at the guiding hand sort of parenting. She certainly hadn’t helped when Gemma had needed her advice most, that first month after her debut.

And the genuine unhappiness in Lucy’s tone called forth an answering empathy in Gemma. She had never struggled with feeling invisible—rather the opposite. But she could understand missing one’s friends.

Although that made Gemma realize suddenly that she hadn’t spent more than a passing moment missing her own group of so-called friends since she left London.

Putting that errant thought firmly away, Gemma said with an ache in her throat, “Lucy. I’m certain that’s not true. Your friends miss you. I should certainly miss you, if you weren’t here now.”

Lucy made a scoffing noise and Gemma put a hand on her arm, pulling her to a stop. Meeting Lucy’s wide, surprised gaze, Gemma said, “I know I haven’t been much of a sister to you. But we are here now, together. You and Mama are all I have, and I promise that I will listen to you. I see you, Lucy Lively. And if your friends don’t, that can only be considered a tragic loss for them. But I imagine that if you did write to them, especially with something as sensational as the tale of a highwayman, they wouldn’t hesitate to write back to you!”

Lucy’s mouth twisted to one side, as though she was trying not to smile too widely, and Gemma felt another pang of sisterly affection.

“He is supposed to be very handsome,” Lucy said grudgingly. “Beneath his mask, I mean. And with a very gentleman-like air about him.”

Rather than pointing out that most gentlemen, even those of Gemma’s scandalous acquaintance, didn’t spend their time shoving pistols in travelers’ faces and demanding their purses, Gemma linked her arm with Lucy’s and started walking once more. “Excellent. Your friends will have nothing so interesting to share with you! There they sit, bored and listless at home while you are having adventures. They shall be positively puce with envy—and perhaps they’ll demand that their parents bring them to Five Mile House for a visit!”

Lucy gasped, a light glowing from behind her sharp blue eyes. “Oh, Gemma. You’re a genius.”

“I am?”

“Yes,” Lucy cried, and her wide smiled beamed out like a beacon from under the shadow of her bonnet. “I know how I can help bring people to the inn! As soon as we get back to the inn, I’ll write a letter.”

“To one of your friends?”

Her sister’s eyes gleamed in a faintly alarming way. “No. To the editor of the London Observator . I’m going to make that highwayman famous—and when people come from miles around hoping to catch a glimpse of him, where will they have to stay?”

Gemma grinned. “Perhaps the new and improved Five Mile House? I believe I see where you’re going with this. Only one problem—will people come from miles around to an area known for armed robberies of carriages? Or will they not rather stay as far away as possible?”

“Ah, but recall that this highwayman is said to be quite handsome, and every inch the gentleman. He hasn't injured a single one of his victims—unless one counts the injury to a lady’s reputation, as it’s rumored he steals more than their jewels…if the lady is willing, he will steal a kiss as well!”

“Is that true?”

Lucy waved an airy hand. “The bit about the injuries is accurate. He must be quite clever about it, not to have been shot already.”

“And the bit about the kisses?” Gemma asked, amused. “Did you make that up, or is it the truth?”

“What is truth?” Lucy responded with a philosophical air. “How important is it, when it comes to a good story? Not very, would be my guess. Certainly the truth is less important than the ability to weave a thrilling tale.”

Having had personal experience with the tendencies of gossip columns to exaggerate and distort their reports, Gemma snorted. “You’re not incorrect. And if you just this moment invented those details about him stealing more than a lady’s jewels, I must say you have a knack for this sort of thing. How brilliant you are.”

The praise brought Lucy’s shoulders straight, her small, pointed chin lifted with pleased pride. “I told you I would do whatever I could to help.”

Bemused, Gemma let the conversation lapse into silence as Beeswax, the draft horse, placidly followed the path through the birchwood.

She had no idea if Lucy’s supposition that travelers would flock to the scene of a highwayman’s crimes was correct. But she had to admit, it felt good to not be the only one with a scheme to get their family out of this mess.

Hope bloomed in her chest, like the fragile star-shaped white flowers bursting through the thick forest undergrowth to reach for the spring sun. Could this actually work? Could her schemes, and Lucy’s, pay off and get their family back to London?

The hope felt good, but it was a sharp-edged pleasure all the same. Gemma’s heart clenched at the sudden realization that getting their family out of this mess would mean going back to London .

It would mean leaving Hal Deveril behind. And never seeing him again.

Now why did that thought make her feel as though if she tried to cry once more, right now, she might actually manage to do it?

Nonsense , she told herself fiercely. It was the pollen, all the new spring growth making her eyes burn and her throat tighten.

Nothing more.