Page 38 of His Arranged Duchess (Regency Wedding Crashers #5)

“ F or you, Miss Luton,” the butler explained ponderously, leaning down. He carried a comically large silver platter on his flattened palm, with a minutely folded note resting on the center of it.

Katherine bit back a sigh. This was just another ridiculous ceremony that her father insisted upon that ought to be dispensed with.

It wasn’t as though they had money and time to waste on polishing ceremonial silver platters.

The Luton coffers were depleted of late, and Katherine was uncomfortably aware that she would likely have to start thinking of marriage or something similarly awful.

“Thank you,” she responded, plucking the note from the platter.

Henry scrambled up her arm, wanting to jump onto the silver platter and be carried around.

The butler often did this, claiming that he was giving the gecko a ‘tour’ of the house.

On this occasion, the butler withdrew before Henry could make his leap.

The gecko settled himself on Katherine’s shoulder instead, piqued.

Katherine squinted at the note. “Oh, it’s Frances’shandwriting. I declare, I’ve hardly heard from her at all since her marriage.”

Her father, seated across the table and entirely hidden behind a newspaper, grunted.

“I should imagine so. She is a married woman. Married women don’t have time for friends.”

Katherine pursed her lips. “Mama was considered quite the socialite, wasn’t she? I recall our house being packed to the rafters with guests when I was young.”

The newspaper rustled. “That was an entirely different situation.”

Katherine decided to let the subject drop. Her father, Lord Tockton, was never in the best of moods early in the morning. This morning he had risen at the crack of nine o’clock, to attend some serious business meeting at ten.

She cracked open the seal and unfolded the note. It was short, crisply written, and obviously scribbled in a hurry, as the ink had not been properly allowed to dry before it was folded.

My dear Katherine, I am sending this note late at night, and I am sure you will not receive it till the morning. Please come and visit me as soon as you can. Something terrible has happened, and I need a friend. Please come.

Your Friend, Frances.

Katherine bit her lip, sighing.

“Poor Frances. She seems to be in quite a state. That husband of hers must be a wretched man. Do you know, he was accused of killing his own father?”

“I do remember,” Lord Tockton answered, the newspaper rustling as he turned a page. “It was ruled an accident. The boy left the country hastily, of course, but from what I remember of his father, it was a miracle he hadn’t been murdered already.”

“That’s hardly the point.”

The newspaper lowered a little, and Lord Tockton’s shrewd little eyes peered out.

“Are you sure? I would have said that it was entirely the point.”

Katherine sniffed. It was too early for conversations on ethical behavior and morality.

“Well, in any case, I’ll visit her after breakfast. It seems that she’s in quite a state.”

“I would imagine so,” her father retorted. “I daresay she fell into a dead faint at the sight of the headlines this morning.”

There was a brief silence.

“Headlines?” Katherine echoed. “Papa, what are you talking about?”

Abruptly, the newspaper came crumpling down onto the dinner table, and Lord Tockton stared in horror at his daughter.

“Katherine, do you mean to tell me you haven’t heard?”

“Heard what ?”

“Oh, heavens. I thought you were too calm about the situation.”

“Papa, you are acting strangely. Tell me what you mean.”

He sighed heavily, scratching his bald head. “The Duchess of Blackstone has been mentioned in every single newspaper and scandal sheet this morning. People can talk of nothing else. The business must have been discovered overnight.”

Katherine swallowed thickly. “What business? What scandal? Papa!”

Wordlessly, Lord Tockton pushed his crumpled newspaper across the table.

Katherine snatched at it, flicking through the pages. Her eyes widened, and she bit her lower lip hard until she tasted copper.

“Oh,” she breathed. “Oh, no. Papa, I must go to Frances at once.”

Lord Tockton nodded soberly. “I think that might be wise.”

Lucien had not come down to breakfast. Frances had stayed away, too, for fear of running into him, but she had since learned from Gray that the breakfast-room had simply sat untouched, with the food congealing in its trays, forgotten.

Frances felt guilty about the waste. In truth, she wasn’t particularly hungry.

She saw movement out of the drawing room window and watched with relief as Katherine stumbled out of her carriage and bustled up the driveway, out of breath.

Frances was not entirely sure how she would broach the subject of what had gone on between her and Lucien.

She only knew that she had to say something , that it was building up into pressure inside her that had to be released one way or another, and that she did not want to talk to Mama or Aunt Emily about it.

No, she needed someone cool-headed and impassive, like Katherine. Katherine’s advice was good and unlikely to be influenced by any biases.

Getting to her feet, Frances smoothed down her skirts and waited for her friend to be shown in. The clock read half-past nine. An early hour for Katherine.

There was a brief commotion out in the hall, then Katherine came barging in, tugging off her gloves.

“I came as soon as I got your note,” she gasped, tearing off her bonnet and tossing it to the incredulous Gray without even looking at him. “Oh, Frances, it’s the most awful news. I cannot imagine how you are feeling.”

“I shall bring tea, Your Grace,” Gray said, still looking a little peeved to have clothing thrown at him. He bowed and retreated, closing the door behind him.

Pausing, Frances frowned at her friend. “I haven’t even told you what the matter is, yet.”

There was a brief silence. Katherine stared at Frances for a long moment.

“Everybody knows, Frances,” she said at last, speaking slowly and carefully as though Frances were hard of hearing, or perhaps a little slow.

Frances blinked. “I don’t see how they could. We made a little scene at the opera, to be sure, but they couldn’t know… Katherine, what are you speaking of?”

Katherine narrowed her eyes. “What are you speaking of?”

“I have had an argument with Lucien,” Frances responded, swallowing thickly. “I am not sure we can reconcile. I was thinking of going back to Mama’s house or finding somewhere else to live. I wanted to talk to you about it.”

Katherine gulped audibly. “Oh, heavens. Oh, heavens . You don’t know, do you? Papa and I assumed you called me over to talk about the newspapers, but you don’t know, you don’t know ! Of course not, how could you? You sent the note last night, after all, and the papers only came out this morning.”

Katherine was babbling now, and Frances inched closer to her, tentatively laying a hand on her arm.

“Kat, you had better tell me what you’re talking about.”

The taller woman sighed deeply, passing a hand over her face. “Have you read any newspapers this morning, or any scandal sheets?”

“No, of course not.”

“Well, you should. Here, I brought a few of Papa’s. They’re awful to read, but you must read them. It’s terrible, but you must know what they are saying about you. Once you’ve read them, I shall destroy them all.”

For the first time, Frances noticed that Katherine was carrying a selection of crumpled papers under her arm. She’d assumed it was simply another quirk of hers, like keeping tarantulas in her reticule or a gecko on her shoulder.

Swallowing, Katherine handed over the papers, her eyes lingering on Frances’s face.

“What am I looking for?” Frances inquired, trying to keep the wobble out of her voice. A sort of uneasiness had landed squarely on her shoulders, dread crawling up from the pit of her stomach.

“You’ll know when you see it,” Katherine responded flatly.

Glancing down at the topmost paper, Frances’s attention was immediately directed to a screaming headline, written in bold and underlined, crawling across the page.

Scandal Of The Century!

Beneath, a smaller headline explained a little further:

The Infamous Duchess Of Blackstone Is Not Who She Professes To Be!

The room seemed to spin around Frances. She was suddenly off-balance, staggering backwards, the papers sliding out of her numb fingers. Abruptly, Katherine’s firm hand was on her elbow, steering her towards a sofa.

“There you are, sit down. Just concentrate on breathing, my dear. In and out. It’s the simplest thing in the world, but the easiest to forget.”

The sofa rushed up towards Frances, and she landed on it with a thump which knocked the breath out of her body. Katherine’s voice seemed to be coming from far away, echoing as if she were speaking from inside a cave.

“The newspaper,” Frances managed, stretching out a shaking hand. “Give me the newspaper.”

Katherine hesitated, squatting in front of her friend. “Perhaps we should wait until you’ve recovered a little.”

Frances shook her head angrily. It was a mistake, as the gesture made the room spin even faster.

“I must read what they have said, Katherine. Please.”

Biting his lip, Katherine wordlessly handed over the paper, and Frances began to read.

In a truly shocking twist worthy of the most sordid novels, it has now been revealed that the Duchess of Blackstone—once Miss Frances Knight—is in fact not at all who she professes to be.

Miss Knight, the rightful daughter of the late, esteemed Baron Rawdon, has in fact lied to all of Society and those nearest and dearest to her.

Those of a certain age may recall the Baron’s ill-advised marriage to a young, pretty opera-singer, who currently holds the title of Dowager Baroness Rawdon.

This unprincipled young woman, it seemed, cuckolded her respectable husband and bore a daughter—Miss Frances Knight herself—out of wedlock, proceeding to pass her off as the legitimate, Christian child of the Baron.