Page 5 of Hazardous to a Duke’s Heart (Lords of Hazard #1)

J on thought the rest of dinner went well. He’d managed to keep his cursing to himself, and he hadn’t even blinked when Mother announced what the cost of the renovations had come to so far. He was reserving opinions about expenses for when he had a chance to go over the estates’ books with their accountant.

Accountants, plural, actually. There were three at the company his father had used. Kershaw had told him that much. Father had also kept a land steward for all the estates and more than one estate manager. This would definitely take some getting used to.

Chloe had shown herself to be both clever and too young to appreciate what she had. Miss Morris, however, had been astonishing. His mother had chosen Chloe’s governess well. Or perhaps Miss Morris had risen to the occasion out of necessity, although he somehow suspected that any daughter of Morris’s would be like the man himself—circumspect, intelligent, and thoughtful.

It was her whimsical side that caught him off guard. He had not expected her to relate such a “vulgar” piece of gossip. That was something Morris couldn’t have taught her.

“Jon,” his mother said as the servants were clearing away the last of dessert, “would you like to join us in the drawing room? You can bring your port in there. We won’t mind.”

“Actually, Mother, I need to speak to Miss Morris alone for a bit.” When all the women stiffened, he wanted to shout, “I am not my brothers!” But he couldn’t blame the ladies for being uncertain of him, given the circumstances. It would take them time to adjust to him as he was now.

So he went on hastily, “Since there aren’t any gentlemen present, I thought Miss Morris might join me here for port, as there are matters I must discuss with her in private regarding her father’s estate.” When the women relaxed, he added, “But if you think it better that we retire to my study—”

“The dining room is fine,” Miss Morris cut in, then ventured a smile.

God, but she had a lovely smile—as bright and engaging as a siren enticing a sailor. That made her dangerous to a man who’d been without a woman for a good long while.

“May I have some port, too?” Chloe asked, probably just to provoke him.

“As long as you take it into the drawing room,” he said, obviously surprising her. And his mother.

“Jon!” Mother cried. “Chloe may not have port! Don’t be absurd.”

“You’re drinking brandy these days, Mother,” he pointed out. “I don’t see why Chloe can’t have port, which isn’t nearly as potent.”

His mother rose and tossed down her napkin. “Fine. But if I catch her dipping into the brandy, I will box your ears.”

Jon stood, trying not to laugh at the image of his mother doing such an asinine thing. “She won’t actually like port, you know. It’s something of an acquired taste.”

Chloe rose, too, casting her mother a furtive look as she followed her out. “It’s all right, Mama. I don’t really want to try the port. I was just bamming Jon. But about the brandy . . .”

He could hear his mother’s remonstrations even after they’d left the room, especially since his mother was careful to leave the door open. But he dismissed the servants. This conversation had to be between him and Morris’s daughter only.

When he looked over at Miss Morris, she was staring at him with interest.

“What?” he asked.

“I can’t quite make you out, Your Grace,” she said, the candlelight shimmering over her features. “Are you trying to annoy your mother? And if so, why? Because we all know the duchess enjoys a nip of brandy now and then, but we would never dare mention it to her. I think she assumes she’s fooling us all.”

He shrugged as he walked over to look for the port in the cabinet where it used to be. He wasn’t surprised to find it still there. Many things could change in the life of an English gentleman, but where they kept their port never seemed to.

As he poured himself a glass, he considered his answer. “All these polite niceties are difficult for me now—the willful blindness and delicate ways of saying things and the circumscribed rules for men versus women.”

He turned and lifted the bottle in the universal gesture for “Want some?” and to his surprise, she nodded. After pouring her a glass, he brought it over, then took the seat closest to hers at the end of the table.

She sipped the port, then made a face and set the glass aside. “Definitely an acquired taste.”

“Mother would probably like it. Port is a mix of wine and brandy.”

“French brandy?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I’ll have to find that out.” He sipped his and couldn’t suppress a sigh of pure pleasure. “But I hope not. Apparently, I still like port.”

“May I ask you something now that your mother isn’t here protesting the inappropriate nature of our conversation?”

He tensed, readying himself for anything. “Of course,” he said, attempting nonchalance.

“How exactly did my father die? You didn’t say in your letter.”

Damn. He’d hoped not to have this conversation so soon, but she had the right to know. “I should have explained. But when I wrote the letter, I was still hoping he’d survive. Once he died, right as we were being freed, I had to scribble a few additional words hastily so I could send the missive off with Heathbrook.”

When she just stared at him expectantly, he added, “The surgeon said your father died of gangrene from a fractured thigh bone. A piece of the bone broke free and poked through the skin, setting off infection and . . . well . . .”

She began to cry, and guilt surged through him again.

“Oh, God,” he muttered under his breath, and whipped out his handkerchief and pressed it into her hand. He patted her shoulder. “There, there,” he said, then winced as he heard the inane words. “I’m sorry.”

“Please, don’t be,” she said, clearly struggling to stop her tears. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose into his handkerchief. “I don’t know why I’m being so weepy. Long before your letter came, I’d reconciled myself to the possibility he was dead. Before your friends arrived, your mother made inquiries and was told there was no record of you and Papa after 1811.”

“When we went to Bitche. No, I don’t imagine they’d tell you of that.”

She eyed him closely. “I know from earlier letters you were sent to Verdun initially.”

“Right. Our first eight years were spent in the detainee camp there.” He shot her a glance. “You know what parole is, don’t you?”

She blinked. “Just that it involves prisoners of war.”

“Only officers. When soldiers are taken prisoner in most countries, the officers are considered men of honor. They’re asked to sign a pledge giving them the freedom to live in the town where they’re held—to rent housing, eat food from the markets . . . essentially to live as any gentleman would—as long as they don’t attempt to escape.”

He returned to his spot across the table from her. He needed some distance. “There are rules, of course. Officers must check in once a week, for example. If they break the rules, they’re put into actual prisons with the regular soldiers. The system is called parole.”

“It sounds civilized,” she ventured. “But you and Papa weren’t in the military.”

He leaned forward. “That’s because Napoleon, in a fit of pique, decreed that all Englishmen of a certain age—any civilian who could become a soldier—had to be seized along with the prisoners of war and kept in one of those prison towns.”

“Verdun was one, I assume.” When he nodded, she asked, with eyes wide, “But are civilians generally kept prisoners in wartime?”

“No. That’s what made it unfair. Civilian travelers are usually allowed to return home when war breaks out.” He stiffened, remembering receiving the awful news that they would not be going home. “To add insult to injury, those of us who fell under Napoleon’s decree were ordered to sign the same pledge officers were. If we didn’t, we were imprisoned in the actual dungeons contained in such towns. As you might imagine, most of us chose to sign and check in, even when our commandant moved it to every day rather than every week unless we paid a bribe. Make no mistake, we were still prisoners in our gilded cages.”

He ran a finger around the rim of his glass. “In Verdun, as long as we kept our heads down and didn’t anger the gendarmes or commandant—and had enough money—we could live decently and have a sort of ‘good’ society. There were wives and families there, since many women didn’t want to leave their husbands. While some détenus were people of rank, there were also tradesmen and professional sorts with families. A little spot of England in France, if you will.”

“How many civilian prisoners?”

He shrugged. “Across the ten prison camps? Napoleon claimed it was ten thousand, but I’ve heard numbers quite a bit lower. At Verdun, there were as many as fifteen hundred of us at one point.”

“Good heavens. That’s the size of a town.”

He nodded. “We did our best to look after each other. The true prisoners of war—almost all Royal Navy sailors—were kept in the Citadel, a real prison, but the rest of us could live in town, eat decent food, read books from the détenus’ library, join clubs, even race horses . . . as long as we could afford it. We just couldn’t go home or leave Verdun.”

“It doesn’t sound too awful.”

“Except that we couldn’t see our families and were subject to our commandant’s whims, which often included marching people off on foot to another camp for some infraction.”

He dragged in a heavy breath, debating whether to tell her about the attempted escape, but decided against that almost at once. She would undoubtedly blame him and rightfully so. He wasn’t ready to . . . to deal with that. “Something happened to change our situation, however, and your father and I and our two friends were sent to Bitche Prison.”

“One of those whims of your commandant, I assume?”

“Something like that.” He drank deeply of the port. “Like the Citadel, Bitche was a real prison but worse.” When her eyes went wide, he continued hastily, “Anyway, when you’re locked up in a prison with every sort of fellow you can imagine—not only merchantmen but sharpers and thieves and . . .” He gazed into his glass. “Bitche was a different kind of place from Verdun. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Different for both you and my father, I assume?” she asked softly, her face paler than before.

“Yes. And for our two friends. We four looked out for each other. But we began to fear we might die there if the war didn’t end soon.” He suppressed a shudder of remembrance. “All of that to say that with the lack of mail and other . . . difficulties, your father decided to write a codicil to his will. He made me executor. And he included a substantial amount of money for you and your mother.”

She gaped at him. “Derived from where , for pity’s sake? When Mama died, she didn’t even leave a will because she owned nothing. I can hardly believe Papa would have had anything to speak of, either.”

Now came the tricky part—persuading Miss Morris to believe his lie. “Not here in England perhaps, but he earned a great deal at Verdun by teaching other détenus. Plenty of families of good reputation and fortune were eager to have their children taught by a man of such educational prowess.”

When she eyed him askance, he embellished the tale. “He taught the children of titled gentlemen, and they paid him handsomely. At Bitche, he taught German to the commandant who hoped to take over some post in Prussia, and the commandant paid him well, too. In short, your father managed to accumulate five thousand pounds, all of which goes to you.”

Miss Morris gaped at him. “From teaching ? That much money? That hardly seems possible.”

Damn. She really was too intelligent for her own good. “You must remember—we didn’t get to continue on my grand tour, so he also had the monies Father provided for our trip. Your father insisted that I take half, of course, but his half was substantial, which added to his saved fortune.” And God would probably strike him dead for laying lie upon lie like this. But surely, he could be forgiven the falsehood for such a good cause.

Miss Morris picked up her glass of port and downed half of it in one long gulp. Looking a bit wobbly, she rose to pace beside the table. “I-I can hardly believe it! Mama always thought Papa capable of achieving more, but this . . . How utterly wonderful!”

Then she seemed to catch herself. She leveled a hard gaze on Jon. “Are you sure it was that much? Perhaps you misread the amount.”

“No, it’s five thousand pounds, give or take a few.” Although God help him if he couldn’t find that much in the Falconridge accounts to “bequeath” to her. Still, if his mother was talking about buying harp-lutes and doing more renovations, Jon ought to be able to give Morris’s daughter a small fortune.

After draining the rest of her port, she roamed the room as she seemed to ponder what this meant for her. He didn’t mind that. She had an excellent figure, and though her gown was demure by dinnertime standards, there was enough of her bosom showing that he couldn’t stop staring.

What was more, every time she turned to walk the other direction and her skirts swept around her, briefly outlining her bottom, he couldn’t stop watching, utterly mesmerized.

Because she had a very fine bottom. It made him wonder what it would be like to smooth his hands over the soft globes. Especially if she were naked and in his . . . God, he would burn in hell for thinking of her like this. Morris was probably scowling at him from heaven.

She halted in front of him. “Once the duchess received your letter informing us of Papa’s death, I consulted his solicitor, but the attorney was reluctant to tell me what was in the will until he was sure of the circumstances. He said he preferred to wait until your return to see if you have a certificate of death. Frankly, until just now, I had no idea Papa had amassed so much.”

She’d consulted with Morris’s solicitor? Already ?

Damn.

Jon had been hoping to speak to the man first. He’d assumed—stupidly, as it turned out, given that the woman had already proved quite clever—that she’d be one of those helpless females who would let him guide her to her fortune, and would thank her stars for having such luck in fathers.

“You realize,” he pointed out, “the bequest wouldn’t be in his present will, anyway. I have a codicil to that one, so the codicil would supersede what is in his solicitor’s copy.”

“Of course!” she said, beaming at him. She sat down once more, smoothing out her skirts. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

Thank God. How in hell he would alter the codicil was anyone’s guess, but he had the original and knew a fellow who could probably forge changes to it, assuming the man had survived Verdun and made his way to England.

“The thing is,” he said, determined to press on with his plan, “there’s a bit of a catch.”

Instantly, her face fell, and her lovely azure eyes flashed him a look of utter hopelessness. “Of course. Isn’t there always?”

“It’s not a bad one, I assure you,” he said hastily. “Your father merely required that the money be used for your dowry.” That had been the easiest way Jon could think of to accomplish what he’d promised Morris—to help her to a good husband.

While dressing for dinner, Jon had chosen the amount—not so large that fortune hunters would be sniffing around her, but large enough that a decent gentleman could see the advantages to marrying a woman who’d been a governess.

Still, she said nothing, just sat there blinking at him like the baby squirrel he’d fed outside his window when he was a boy.

He eyed her closely. “Did you hear what I—”

“I heard you.” She fingered the locket he’d noticed her wearing all day. “I just . . . Well, it’s not surprising Papa wanted me to marry—he was always traditional in his beliefs about women—but for a moment, I thought perhaps . . .”

His stomach knotted. “Perhaps what?”

“I . . . I was having other dreams of how to use that money is all.” A wan smile crossed her face. “But that’s silly, since I didn’t even know it existed until moments ago.”

Guilt assailed him again. He tamped it down. He was doing what her father had asked. Mostly. “Your father said the lease would almost be up on your cottage. Were you hoping to renew it with those funds? Surely you wouldn’t wish to live there alone.”

“No, I wouldn’t pay for another lease.” She worried her lip with her teeth. “The cottage is much too expensive for me to keep it up.”

“Then you wish to put the funds into an annuity and live on it.” Her father would not have approved of that, Jon was certain, if it meant that she lived alone her whole life.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, although her expression said otherwise. “I never intend to marry, so I’ll never have a chance to do anything with it, anyway.”

He wouldn’t let that sway him from his plan, not without knowing her reasons. “Why on earth would a woman as intelligent and attractive as you make such a choice?”

She cocked her head. “Do you intend to marry, Your Grace?”

The question startled him. “Eventually, since I’m expected to produce an heir. But not anytime soon.”

“So, ‘Why on earth would a gentleman as intelligent and attractive as you make such a choice?’ ” she said in a vague approximation of his voice.

She was mocking him now, but he didn’t care. “Because I have my hands full learning to run a dukedom I never expected to inherit.”

“The right wife could help you with that.”

“I suppose, although my mother never did anything to that end with Father. Besides, I fear I am no great catch, Miss Morris.” Certainly not for Morris’s daughter.

A bitter laugh escaped her. “Right. You’re merely a young, wealthy duke with extensive properties. Why would any sensible woman wish to marry you ?”

He ignored her sarcasm. “Appearances can be deceiving, as you so adroitly pointed out earlier today.” And that was all he would say about that, because when he got married, it would not be to her . He would always fear she might learn the truth concerning her father’s death, then blame him for it.

“In any case,” he went on, “you’re not answering my question. A woman of your talents, with a five-thousand-pound fortune to her name, could pick any man she liked for a husband and then not be alone in the world. I thought every woman wanted to be a wife and mother.”

“Not every woman,” she said tightly.

“Very well. Then purely for argument’s sake, why don’t you tell me what you would want to do with the money?”

“You really want to know?”

“Of course.”

She gazed at him steadily, her chest rising and falling in soft, captivating swells. “I should like to start a school for female artists.”