Page 5 of The Etiquette of Love (The Academy of Love #7)

F reddie was packed, dressed in her best traveling costume, and waiting in the foyer when the duke’s coach arrived at her door a few minutes before the appointed hour.

“Good lord,” she murmured as she looked out the foyer sidelight at the magnificent black lacquer equipage with its four black horses, liveried postilions, coachman, and four outriders—one of whom appeared to be the duke himself, mounted on a superb black horse.

He dismounted gracefully, tossed his reins to a servant, and then strode toward the door.

Freddie hastily turned away and was pulling on her gloves when he entered the foyer, a servant on his heels.

“Are you ready?” he asked abruptly.

“Yes.”

He gave a curt nod and turned to the two valises, one of moderate size and a far smaller one that contained the nursing supplies she had accumulated over the years. “This is all you are bringing?”

Was that judgment she heard in his tone? She met his cool gray gaze, looking for signs of…anything. But the man’s thoughts were, as always, a mystery. “Yes, this is all I am bringing,” she said more tartly than she would have liked. “I will stay as long as Wareham needs me. But once he is on the road to recovery, I will have to return. I have responsibilities here and cannot be gone indefinitely.” Why was she explaining herself to him?

To her relief, he did not argue. Instead, he gestured for the servant to take the bags.

The duke’s hand rested lightly on her lower back as he escorted her toward the carriage. She was so distracted by the subtle, commanding touch that she did not immediately notice the woman standing beside the carriage.

“This is Miss Denny,” the duke said.

The woman, an attractive middle-aged female garbed in the well-made but modest clothing of a companion, dipped a graceful curtsey. “Good day, my lady.”

Freddie gave the duke an exasperated look. “You had time to engage a chaperone?”

“Miss Denny only recently accepted employment with me. She was waiting to accompany me to Whitcombe, but will come to Torrance Park, first.”

So, yes , in other words; he had engaged a chaperone for her. What an infuriating man.

Freddie hardly required a chaperone—indeed, she was a chaperone—but it was not the woman’s fault, so she inclined her head politely.

The duke handed Freddie into the carriage. “Unfortunately, there is no moon tonight so we will be forced to break our journey when darkness falls.”

Freddie nodded, surprised—but pleased—that he had taken the time to inform her of their schedule, especially since he was the sort of high-handed man who never explained anything to anyone.

To Freddie’s further surprise, he helped Miss Denny into the coach himself and then flipped up the steps and shut the door.

Most of the tension that had built within her dissipated the moment she was not directly confronted with the duke.

She put him from her thoughts and took notice of her surroundings. It had been a long, long time since Freddie had ridden in such a luxurious vehicle. Not since her brother Wareham’s carriage. Sedgewick had preferred to do his traveling by curricle, which had left Freddie to occupy a decrepit old coach that had been in use since his grandfather’s day; a ponderous, sloppily sprung whale of a vehicle that had rattled her bones to dust.

It took only a few minutes in the duke’s carriage to appreciate the difference. Not only was the interior—supple black leather seats with thick carpet and elegant wooden window coverings—far nicer than anything she had ridden in before, but the cobble street was like velvet beneath the well-sprung vehicle.

She glanced out the right window to where the duke rode. There was no denying that he showed to advantage on horseback. Not only was his mount—a glossy coal-black horse that matched his team to perfection—magnificent, but he rode as if he’d been born to it. Which of course he had. Freddie decided Plimpton should only ever wear riding clothes, which displayed his fit body to perfection. Especially those muscular thighs of his, which were flexing enticingly beneath his coffee-brown leather breeches. Yes, Freddie mused as she studied him, she much preferred Plimpton’s more powerful physique to sleek elegance.

You prefer it ? a disbelieving voice mocked.

Just because I find him overbearing and domineering does not mean I cannot admire his form.

Plimpton turned slightly and met Freddie’s gaze, his severe resting expression growing slightly sterner, as if he disapproved of her.

As if you were a horse that had the bit between its teeth…

Freddie seethed at the memory of his obnoxious words and narrowed her eyes at him.

If he noticed her anger, he did not show it. She did not want to be the first to look away, but something in his hard gaze caused a flush that started at her face and rapidly spread beneath her clothing. Her chest tightened and it became harder to breathe—

Blast the man! Freddie turned away before she embarrassed herself further.

Thank God he was riding alongside the carriage rather than inside it.

Unwanted, the argument they’d had about Wareham came back to her. Freddie cringed as she recalled her reaction to the news of her brother’s injury. Plimpton had behaved with abominable arrogance, but Freddie’s petulant, thoughtless behavior had been far worse. How could she have allowed her ancient anger against Wareham to rear its ugly head at such a time? If what the duke said was true, her brother might die .

It pained her to admit it, but she was grateful to the duke for making her see reason.

For the second time in as many minutes Freddie put the man out of her head, opened her needlework bag, and took out her current project. It was the fourth and final cushion cover in a commissioned work and it would pay a great deal—relative to what she usually earned from her efforts—once she could hand it over to the man who bought all her needlework.

She had begun selling her work shortly after she had been widowed. All Freddie’s life people had praised the quality of her embroidery. Not until Sedgewick’s death had she realized that such a pleasurable pastime could yield money. It was not enough to live on, of course, but it was enough to purchase small conveniences. Or at least it had been when she’d worked at the Stefani Academy. Since that had closed, she’d found herself scrambling to make ends meet. Sponsoring young women did not always yield actual money. No, such an exchange would be far too vulgar. Instead, she was given gifts . Sometimes these gifts came in the form of cash, but more often she was given jewelry or other valuable baubles. She had discovered, this past year, that launching the daughters of industrialists was a far more profitable endeavor than sponsoring the daughters of peers. The Conroy twins were an excellent example. Their mother and father had simply named a sum—an eye-popping one—to take charge of their daughters. It had been uncomfortable to engage in such a nakedly commercial exchange, but it had also been a relief. And it had generated enough money to pay several bills that had been about to become an embarrassment.

Thinking of money made her recall Piers’s last words to her today. “You needn’t worry about money any longer, Little Bird. One of the few wise things I’ve done in my life is ally myself with Severn these past sixteen years. As his first mate I have earned a great deal of prize money. You never need to work again.”

She had been warmed by her brother’s well intentioned, but ill conceived, offer. “I cannot stop working, Piers. Nor can I live off your money.”

“Why the devil can’t you? I am your brother, for pity’s sake!”

“What would I tell my friends, Piers? For that matter, what would the rest of the ton assume if I were suddenly living as high as a coach horse and stopped working?”

“It’s none of their bloody business where your money comes from.”

“I can hardly tell people you are my brother, can I? I might as well report you to Bow Street as accept your money.”

They had argued briefly before he had accepted her rejection but only for the time being . “I will contrive something that will answer,” he had promised.

“Concentrate on contriving a way to prove your innocence, first.”

He had laughed and they had been on good terms as she had seen him to the door.

“I will be gone for some weeks,” he had said before kissing her cheek.

“Where are you going?”

“Never you mind, Little Bird.”

She smiled to herself at the memory as she finished one edge of her seat cushion and loosened the tambour frame to move the work.

Freddie might not be able to accept financial gifts from Piers, but it felt good to have a brother ready to stand by her side after so many years—even if she could not acknowledge him as such.

Oh, Wareham would offer help, but there would be strings attached.

Miles had always been ready to champion her in any way, but he was a friend and though she loved him, she did not love him like one loved family. Nor did she love him romantically, even though she knew he had been interested in her. Indeed, she had been relieved when he had married Mary Barnett. The prickly little woman was perfect for Miles. Their union had started out as rocky as any she had ever seen, but it had been clear at their wedding ball a year ago that their union had turned into a love match.

Of all the teachers who’d worked at the Stefani Academy only Freddie and Lori remained uncoupled.

Freddie would never remarry, but she had hopes for Lori, whom she was almost certain had developed tender feelings for Lord Stand Fast Severn. It was a shame there had been such a bizarre misunderstanding involving Severn and the heiress Demelza Pasco. How a marriage announcement came to be made in the newspaper about the pair was quite a mystery to Freddie. But evidently that had all been a terrible mistake and Severn was not the villain Freddie had feared he might be. Lori had fled London after reading the faux wedding announcement, escaping to the country to lick her wounds at her brother and sister-in-law’s home.

Freddie needed to write to Lori about the mix-up with Severn and Miss Pasco, but she still had not decided how to relay that news without raising her friend’s hopes.

Well, she would have plenty of time to consider the matter on this upcoming trip.

***

Plimpton had made the journey from London to Dorset countless times over the years. He and Wareham had been best friends for three-quarters of his life, after all. But never had he accompanied a woman to the earl’s country house.

Cecily had taken an immediate dislike to Wareham’s wife the first and only time the countess had visited Whitcombe and had not cared to either visit or entertain the Warehams again.

As a result, it had been only Plimpton and Wareham who’d traveled back and forth over the years.

Not that Cecily had entertained many other guests after those first few years. It had been Plimpton’s mother who’d served as his hostess for the better part of the last two decades.

Cecily herself had not left Whitcombe since the death of their last child, Edward. Indeed, she had rarely left her chambers. Once she no longer needed to tolerate Plimpton’s monthly visits to her bed, she had requested that she be allowed to move to some other apartment, far away from his. Whitcombe had three-hundred-and-sixty-one rooms, so there had been plenty for her to choose from.

After she had moved chambers weeks, even months, had gone by without catching a glimpse of her. Plimpton had no idea what Cecily had done with all her time. She certainly had not spent any of it with their daughter. For all that Rebecca was their only surviving child, Cecily had always treated the girl as a stranger. Right from the beginning she had wanted nothing to do with the rearing of her, turning everything over to Plimpton and his mother.

Wareham’s wife—Sophia—had been the polar opposite of Cecily. She had controlled her children, her houses, and her husband with a proverbial fist of iron. No detail was too insignificant for the countess to manage. She’d been a bloody exhausting woman and he had never understood why Wareham had been so besotted with her. Oh, she had been lovely, that was true. But she’d been hard through and through.

There had not been much to choose from between either of their wives in Plimpton’s opinion. And yet until only a year ago Wareham had loved the countess to distraction. His feelings had changed so suddenly it had been shocking.

At that point, just like Cecily, Wareham had moved out of the master’s chambers to get away from his spouse.

Plimpton had never asked his friend what had happened. He did not want to know.

While he’d never envied Wareham his wife, for years he had been guilty of a deep envy for the other man’s children. Six times the countess had been brought to bed, and all six had survived.

But then Lady Wareham had been a healthy, energetic woman who had scarcely sat still for a moment of the day. If she had not died from a bad hunting accident Plimpton suspected she would have lived to be a very old lady.

Cecily, by contrast, had always been ethereally frail. Not until he’d been married to her for five years did Plimpton discover just how much of her frailty—and her beauty—she owed to the numerous vials and powders that cluttered her dressing table.

He hastily shut the door on those distasteful thoughts.

Thank God Rebecca had lived through childhood, although her health to this day was still less than robust. He did not like to imagine what his life would have become if his daughter, too, had died.

He would have gone on doing his duty, because that is what he did—and who he was—but life would have been gray and joyless.

He loved his mother and his brother, of course, but there was no love to compare to what a person felt for a child. At least not in his experience.

Plimpton turned to the woman seated in his carriage.

Her head was bent over something—perhaps a book—and her profile was to him. She was a flawless woman; the sort who robbed a man of breath each and every time he looked at her. She was as lovely as Cecily had been and every bit as regal and aloof. Especially around Plimpton.

But although she wore a mask of frigid courtesy in his presence, he had observed the way she interacted with Honoria and their other friends. Unlike Cecily, there was a warm and loving woman beneath her cool, controlled veneer.

But never toward Plimpton. For him, all Winifred had was hostility and mistrust. Did she know about Plimpton’s part in banishing her beloved half-brother—a banishment that had eventually led to Piers’s death—or was there some other reason she despised him?

***

Even though Plimpton’s carriage did not bear his escutcheon, it was clear to anyone with an ounce of sense that whoever the impressive cortege belonged to was somebody wealthy and powerful.

The duke had either been very certain that Freddie would accompany him on his journey and sent his horses ahead, or he routinely kept a change of horses on the road to Dorset because the team that replaced the original four were every bit as magnificent.

Even when there was no change needed, Plimpton stopped to allow the two women to stretch their legs and refresh themselves.

Freddie discovered that Miss Denny was taking a position as companion to the duke’s aged mother who had suffered an apoplexy several months earlier and now required constant attention.

If Miss Denny thought this trip to Dorset was strange, she did not indicate it—and not because she was reticent to talk. Indeed, she indulged in an almost constant stream of chatter from the moment they climbed into the coach, only halting the flow when they stopped for refreshment breaks, resuming immediately once the coach started rolling.

Freddie did not mind the woman’s chatter. The last thing she wanted to do was sit quietly with her thoughts. Thoughts that were whirling and sloshing like water in a bucket that had been badly jostled.

Between her worry for Wareham and her worry for Piers, Freddie was worn out by the time they stopped for the night and was looking forward to being alone and having a tray in her room.

She should have known better.

“I have engaged a private parlor for us, Winifred,” the duke said as he helped her from the carriage when they reached the Knight and Stag, an elegant posting inn that appeared to be quite new.

His words were an order disguised as a request and it prodded her temper like a poker stirring dormant coals to life.

“I am happy to dine in my room.” She could not resist adding, “I am sure Miss Denny would be pleased to break bread with you.”

He regarded her with a calm, direct look that sent unwanted arrows of arousal throughout her body and made Freddie want to slap herself. Why, oh why, did she have to develop a physical infatuation for this man out of all the hundreds she had encountered over the years?

“Will an hour give you enough time to rest and ready yourself?” he asked, ignoring both her rejection and her comment about the garrulous companion.

Well. What could a person say to that, other than yes ?

“An hour will be sufficient. Thank you, Your Grace.”

He inclined his head and strode away.

Miss Denny was talking to one of Plimpton’s grooms and gesturing toward the second coach, where a haughty looking man who could only be His Grace’s valet was directing the unloading of luggage.

Freddie was about to join the other woman and fetch her valise when a tall, handsome young man wearing the duke’s silver and navy-blue livery approached her, one of her bags in each hand. “Your chambers are ready, my lady. Right this way, please.” He nodded toward the double doors, which the innkeeper and his wife had flung wide open to receive the duke’s entourage.

“It seems like His Grace is well-known here,” she said as they made their way up the stairs.

“He stays here often, although it is usually one of his stops on the way back from Torrance Park, rather than on the way there.”

That made sense as he probably left London far earlier than he had today.

“What is your name?” she asked when they reached the landing.

“William, my lady.” He paused outside the second door and opened it.

The room was far larger and nicer than what one saw in most inns. Massive beams held up a freshly plastered ceiling and the wooden floors gleamed. The bed was a huge four poster affair with ivory curtains, fluffy pillows, and gold brocade bedspread.

So, this was the sort of luxury one enjoyed if one was a duke. Or if one traveled with a duke.

“Is there anything I can get for you, my lady?”

She turned from the bed. “No, thank you, William, that will be all.”

Before he could shut the door a maid arrived with a steaming ewer. “His Grace said I was to help you dress, my lady.”

“Thank you, but I do not require assistance. You can just leave that on the dresser.” She reached into the reticule that still hung from her wrist and extracted a coin, handing it to the maid as she turned to leave.

The girl beamed and dropped a curtsey. “Thank you, my lady!”

Freddie locked the door and then stripped off her gloves before opening the larger of the two bags, which held only four gowns. One of the garments was her best dinner dress. It was also her newest gown, which she had bought when Mr. Conroy gave her a bonus. It had been a reckless purchase, but all her dresses had begun to look threadbare. Fortunately, the two modistes that she brought most of her clients to had offered her significant discounts on her own clothing. This dress was the first time she had taken advantage of such an offer.

As she stroked the lovely mint green silk, she chastised herself. Why had she packed such a gown when she might have used the space for something more useful and practical?

You brought it because you wanted the duke to see you in it. You wanted him to observe you in something other than the dowdy and matronly gowns you wear to chaperone your clients.

Freddie ignored the voice and undressed down to her chemise before washing the travel grime from her face and limbs with the deliciously hot water. She unpinned her hair, brushed it until it shone, and then re-dressed it in a sleek chignon.

The gown’s buttons were cleverly hidden by a side ruffle, which allowed her to dress without a maid. The pale green color was not a shade she would have believed flattering, but it had been made for a woman who’d never collected it and Madam Therese had urged her to try it on, offering her an even deeper discount than usual.

“It is not a color that will suit many women,” the modiste had admitted when she had regarded Freddie in the trifold looking glass. “But with your coloring and slim form”—she had made a gesture with her lips and fingertips that was quintessentially gallic. “You must take this one, my lady. It was meant for you.”

As Freddie studied herself now, she had to admit the pale green made her hair look like spun gold and her eyes more silver than gray. Not only did she love the color, but the thin silk caressed her body in a way that felt positively decadent.

“And why are you wearing it tonight, Winifred?” she asked herself mockingly, cutting her reflection a scathing glance as she took out the string of paste pearls that went with every gown ever made and clasped them around her throat. Once, years before, she had possessed a strand of genuine pearls left to her by her mother, a woman she did not remember. The necklace, along with the matching earbobs, she had sold the day she had gone to the asylum to collect Miranda. She had needed the money to bribe the attendant to look the other way.

She had consoled herself with the argument that they were only things —that Miranda’s freedom and future were more important—but she had felt a twinge of regret at parting with the last connection to her mother.

Freddie screwed the fake pearl earbobs into her ears and then smoothed the fine silk of her skirt, taking pleasure from the feel of the garment as much as the look of it. There was no point in lying to herself; she had brought the gown hoping she would dine with the duke at some point.

Wanting to impress a man—especially one like Plimpton—was… dangerous.

Freddie would need to remain vigilant around him.