Page 65 of The Ladies Least Likely
CHAPTER FIVE
“ H is Grace is recently thirteen years of age.”
Grey began Amaranthe’s education in the family over dinner as he carved the glazed ham.
Amaranthe feared the meal would prove plain fare to the aristocratic palate, but Mrs. Blackthorn knew her work, and the eager expressions on the faces of the children said to them a hot meal was as good as nectar and ambrosia.
“I’ll go to Eton for the fall term, if Grey permits it and Mr. Joseph thinks I am ready,” young Hunsdon added.
“Permit? I insist.” Grey laid a thick chunk of meat on the boy’s plate and passed it to Amaranthe to fill. “It appears we’ll have to find a source of funds, but we needn’t discuss that in front of Miss Illingworth.”
Amaranthe guessed that remark came more from politeness than mistrust. Grey would have to discuss the ducal finances with her, and soon, if he wished her to help equip the household with staff.
They had returned to find Hunsdon House absent of occupants.
The Palladian mansion in Hanover Square echoed like an empty tomb, its cavernous entry hall bare of any servants to greet them, the common rooms quiet under a thin sheen of dust. Mrs. Blackthorn set up at once in the kitchen, sending Derwa out with a summons that conjured half a dozen young helping hands from sources only Mrs. Blackthorn knew.
Eyde saw the ducal children bathed and changed for dinner.
Ralph engaged Davey to wait on them, even locating a suit of livery, and Davey’s delight at serving at a duke’s table was written all over his face.
They dined at a small table set up in one of the informal parlors, but even the simplest of the house’s rooms made Amaranthe feel glaringly plain. No wonder wealthy ladies spent their days changing from one expensive ensemble into another. They needed to match their rich surroundings.
Grey had not donned formal attire either; he still wore the breeches and frock coat in which he’d thundered into her house. But the children were thrilled by the rare treat of dining with adults, as if it were a holiday, and Amaranthe wished she’d made herself more elegant for them.
“And Lord Edward?” She passed his plate to Ned.
Eyde had laid a splendid table, though they dined en famille, serving themselves while the footmen brought dishes and poured drinks.
Candles gleamed in crystal holders along a table draped in white linen, and the bone china’s delicate gilded pattern would have turned Favella green with envy.
Something about Hunsdon House brought her cousin the baronet to mind, and Amaranthe pushed the memories away before they could cast an unpleasant shadow.
“Ned is eleven, and I am eight.” Camilla eagerly accepted her plate but watched Amaranthe for cues.
Lady Camilla had turned herself out in all the finery she had, a white silk frock awash with lace and paste pearls about her throat.
Eyde’s handiwork showed in the twists of curls tied up with silk ribbons, and Amaranthe smiled.
“Two years older than Derwa, then,” she said.
Grey met her eyes as he held out Amaranthe’s plate, adorned with two tidy slices of ham. He’d saved her the tenderest pieces, and the recognition flustered her.
So did the sight of him at the head of the table, his unpowdered hair drawn back in a queue and showing here and there a streak of gold among the darker brown.
A shadow of stubble covered his jaw, giving him a roguish look, and the candlelight sculpted his features into strong lines and intriguing shadows.
She turned to the dish of asparagus spears simmered in cream that Davey slid onto the table beside her.
“Tell us about your household, Miss Illingworth,” Grey said. “Your servants seem unusually devoted to you. Almost like friends.”
Davey tensed as he withdrew to his post next to the sideboard, and Amaranthe spoke carefully, sensing a trap.
“Eyde and I left Cornwall six years ago.” She distributed the asparagus among the children’s plates.
“We went to stay with Joseph in Oxford until he completed his studies, and then we moved to London. Davey found us shortly thereafter, and Mrs. Blackthorn came to us that first summer as well.” She dished a portion of vegetables onto Grey’s plate and decided to change the subject.
“I understand the passing of the duke was fairly recent? My condolences for your loss.”
“It was only a loss for some,” Grey said in a biting tone, and the young duke looked up, hurt.
“He was your father too, Grey.”
Amaranthe sat back at this. “You are brothers?” She looked from Grey to Hugh, wondering why the younger boy had the title.
“Half-brothers,” Grey said. He sank his knife into his ham with a savage motion. “I am not in the line of succession.”
Illegitimate. That might account for the hard shell around him, Amaranthe thought. It did not, however, excuse his poor manners. Plenty of the nobility’s illegitimate children were brought up in polite society, if often in a different home.
She peered into a covered dish and discovered her oysters nestled in a buttery sauce. She portioned them onto plates, trying not to feel covetous. Rich people no doubt ate oysters with every meal, but for Amaranthe they were a rare indulgence once she’d left Cornwall and its bordering sea behind.
“Then the duchess—?” She let the question dangle, fearing she was being intrusive, but she wanted to understand.
Grey called the duchess Sybil, and the young duke emphasized that she was not their mother.
Still, a stepmother ought to feel some sort of compunction, even if child rearing was much different in the highest circles.
Grey snorted. “Sybil lacks even the slightest maternal impulse.” His voice softened as he looked across the table. “Christine, their mother, died when Camilla was three, I am sorry to say.”
All three children looked at their plates.
Amaranthe slid the oyster around on her tongue.
So Sybil was the old duke’s second wife, and Christine the first. Who, then, was the Marguerite, Lady Vernay inscribed in the flyleaf of her Book of Hours?
Amaranthe still thought of the book as hers, though she was likely never to see it again while Reuben was alive.
Searching it out would require confronting him, and she had no desire to be anywhere in his vicinity.
“My condolences on that loss as well,” Amaranthe said. She wanted to know more of Grey’s mother, but this was not the time to quiz him on his ancestry. “And you, Mr. Grey, are the children’s appointed guardian?”
His face hardened, the candlelight catching the flex of a muscle in his jaw.
“I ought to be, as it’s what the old duke wished, but Sybil challenged the terms of the will. She insisted she was the more fit to oversee the estate and the children.”
His lips thinned as he pressed them together. He had extraordinarily well-shaped lips for a man. “Given that she has not waited for the court case to be resolved, I can only conclude that her primary interest all along has been in the estate’s income.”
“You’ll win the case now, won’t you, Grey?” Ned spoke around the steady progress of transferring food to his mouth. “Or you’ll be able to argue it yourself, once you’re called to the bar?”
“However do you know anything about the case?” Grey wanted to know. “Sybil ought not have been discussing it with you.”
“Why not, if it concerns us?” said Hugh indignantly. “And servants talk, Grey.”
“You’re a barrister?” Amaranthe asked.
She had once thought the law a respectable profession, until Joseph informed her that the Inns of Court admitted too many young men who had no ambition to study and instead found the Inns a source of entertainment replete with masques, revels, and riotous feasts.
She had judged him a dandy when Grey arrived at her door, frivolous and not overly intelligent, but here in the company of his family, dining at home, he seemed composed and serious.
Perhaps he was behaving so for her benefit. After his initial belligerence, followed by his forced plea for aid, he had treated her with scrupulous courtesy, as if he thought Amaranthe one of those dull and humorless ladies who always followed the rules.
Better he think that than know the truth.
“I’ll be a barrister if the Benchers ever admit me.” Grey skewered the ham as he cut a fresh slide. “But a solicitor is arguing our case in Chancery, Ned. I imagine the court will rule in our favor once the new evidence is admitted.”
“Then you hold out no hope that Her Grace and your steward are somehow acting in the children’s best interests,” Amaranthe said.
Grey regarded her as if she had just stood up and turned a cartwheel. His harsh expression cracked into a smile.
“How I wish I had your optimism, Miss Illingworth,” he said.
“But I fear the interests that Sybil and Mr. Popplewell serve are entirely their own. As a matter of fact,” he added, “I suspect Mr. Popplewell serves Sybil’s interests entirely, as he will very likely go to prison or be transported for what he’s done. ”
Amaranthe was about to inquire further about the duchess when Grey passed her the oysters from his plate. It was such a domineering move—he had not even inquired if she wanted them—yet she guessed he had noticed her enjoyment.
Her cheeks heated. He was more observant than he seemed.
That made him more dangerous.
“Tell us of your family, Miss Illingworth,” Grey prompted as Amaranthe doled out cauliflower pudding. “Your brother has told us little about himself, and nothing about you.”
More dangerous ground still, and she did not have a ready answer, for she was not accustomed to people showing interest in her, particularly gentlemen. Amaranthe wondered how much explanation would satisfy his curiosity.