Page 12 of Unraveled by the Duke (Scandalous Duchesses #1)

A lexander lowered himself into a leather armchair that had been dragged to the fireplace. A tiger-skin rug covered the dark floorboards in front of the hearth, and numerous relics from Africa adorned the mantelpiece.

Bright shafts of sunlight filtered through the tall windows of the office of Mr. Percival Trent, personal solicitor to the Dukes of Cheverton for three generations.

He sat opposite Alexander, a glass on the table next to his right hand containing a concoction he claimed was an elixir discovered in his years in Africa. To Alexander’s right hand was a glass of brandy that he had not touched.

Alexander, contrary to his reputation, was not a heavy drinker, and he never drank during the day.

“It is most irregular, but then you would expect me to say it,” Trent said in the peculiar accent he had acquired during years spent with the Boers.

“I do, but it is necessary,” Alexander insisted.

Trent had a ledger open on his bony knees, and his long-fingered hands were turning the pages.

“And I would like you to do everything you can, when preparing these accounts, to remove any hint that the debts were accrued by my father.”

Trent nodded. “That will be done, of course, but I am troubled that it exonerates the previous Duke at the expense of the current one. And it is the current Duke I serve. Whomever these accounts are given to will believe you to be…”

“A rake and a wastrel,” Alexander said harshly. “Because that is how the stark numbers appear. Especially if read through the lens of the reputation I have been careful to nurture.”

“Most people would come to the same conclusion regardless of your reputation,” Trent said, his tone never shifting from reasonable neutrality. They could have been discussing the weather or the end of the world.

“But I will not countenance the risk of my father being viewed in such a way. He never was that kind of man. I was… once.”

Trent nodded with no trace of judgment. “I remember.”

The judgment might not have been in the old man’s voice or eyes, but Alexander felt it, nonetheless. He felt guilt for the days of his youth spent in idle pleasure while his father’s health deteriorated.

Health and mind. I should have been there. Violet is a saint for not blaming me. I should have been there.

“You have your assignment, Mr. Trent,” Alexander said, signaling an end to the meeting.

“I do, Your Grace. Is there a deadline?”

There was a spark of hope in his voice that made Alexander smile mirthlessly.

“As soon as possible,” he replied.

Trent smiled tightly. “As usual. Oh, for the days of specifics. Perhaps in heaven.”

Alexander left his solicitor’s idiosyncratic office at Gray’s Inn and stepped out of the building into the sunshine.

Across from him were the Gray’s Inn gardens.

He crossed the road and walked along a path flanked by yews that looked as though they had always stood there with the city growing around them.

It gave him a sense of peace to be surrounded by greenery, but the gardens were too crowded to slow his racing mind. Too many people with inquisitive minds and eyes, wondering about his business, speculating, and gossiping.

What am I to do about Celia? A beautiful and fierce woman. So alluring. So tempting. There was a time when I would have pursued her and considered catching her a great victory. But now…

He followed the path towards Kings Road, seeing nothing of the gardens, his mind focused on Celia. Her deep brown eyes, limitless pools of pure emotion, communicating so much. Her perfect face, sculpted by her maker to be a paragon of femininity. Her body, so soft and pliant.

He reached the road before realizing he had left the greenery behind him and shook himself. Looking around, he raised a hand to hail a cab, knowing where he wanted to go to truly find peace.

Celia will see my debts and believe they are mine. Her father will pay the dowry, and my creditors will be satisfied. Funds will be freed up to finally arrange a suitable debut for Hyacinth, the kind of event this city sees once only in a Season. Her future will be secured.

That is what I must focus on, not my desire for Celia. Those feelings are irrelevant.

The cab he had hailed took him to the imposing edifice of the British Museum.

As he ascended the steps, he was already anticipating the soothing quiet of the private reading room maintained exclusively for the Dukes of Cheverton since his grandfather’s day.

An hour or two of seclusion would allow him to refocus his mind. Put thoughts of Celia aside.

He stopped before the entrance when a familiar figure rose from a bench to the side.

“Miss Dunnings,” he greeted warily.

Lavinia smiled tentatively and walked gracefully towards him.

“We were not always so formal with each other… May I still call you Alexander?” she asked.

“You may. I owe you that much,” he allowed.

Her smile became a touch more confident.

I did not treat her well, but there was nothing else to be done. Honor dictated that I marry Celia, at least in the eyes of the ton. I could not maintain my engagement to Lavinia.

“Let us not speak of debt, Alexander. I understand why you did what you did. I… find it harder to resign myself to how the situation arose.”

Alexander stiffened at the note of reproach in her voice. The hint of pain concealed bravely.

“An extraordinary occurrence that was misconstrued.”

“You were kissing her.”

Alexander looked around at the ladies and gentlemen entering and exiting the museum. None showed any sign of overhearing, but that was the nature of the games these people played. Gossip spread behind one’s back.

“Shall we step inside?” Lavinia suggested, following his gaze.

“I do not think there is anything else to discuss,” Alexander said coldly.

“Would you not grant me this boon? As recompense for how I have been treated?” Lavinia implored.

She had stepped closer, almost closer than propriety dictated, and pitched her voice lower. Lower but just about audible to someone passing by.

It irked Alexander. A woman whispering to a man could be misconstrued as one lover whispering to another. Or that the two had secrets. Either interpretation would harm his reputation and that of his wife.

I do not know that I can fully trust Celia yet, but she is my wife, even if in name only. That act becomes pointless if her reputation is still the subject of gossip.

“Very well,” Alexander relented testily. “I will hear you out, and you will do the same. Let us go inside.”

He did not offer his arm but simply turned and proceeded onward. Lavinia followed.

He kept his hands firmly clenched behind his back as they walked and spoke without looking at her. He led them into the museum and through a door that was opened for them by a steward, into a quiet and private corridor filled with crates and chests.

Alexander often enjoyed opening one at random as he passed, examining its contents for a moment.

It might be an ancient stone relic from Greece or a psalter from the beginnings of Christianity in England.

The corridor was a treasure trove that reminded him of his insignificance next to the grand scale of history.

“Ugh, they should clean out this corridor. These boxes smell musty, do you not think? I would not want that stale air clinging to my dress or my hair,” Lavinia complained.

“Some things never change,” Alexander muttered.

“They do not, but they should. The management should be more diligent,” Lavinia said, missing his meaning entirely.

Did Celia actually do me a favor? Life as a husband to this woman would have been intolerable. I would have had to spend my time thinking up ways to stay out of her company. Which she would not have allowed. I have been spared a life of purgatory.

They came to a door that looked no different from any others, and Alexander took a key out of his coat pocket and unlocked it.

Inside was dark. Alexander reached for a shelf beside the door, finding a tin of flint and tinder, and used it to light a lamp next to it.

A small room was revealed, with no windows but many books. They filled shelves that covered every wall except the one containing a stone fireplace. Two armchairs with cracked leather upholstery sat before the fireplace, a table between them, and a desk behind one of them.

The air smelled of old leather and wood. To Alexander, it was the smell of knowledge and history. The history of his family, held in the books and even scrolls that filled the shelves, collected by his predecessors.

“Not even a window, Alexander? Why this room?” Lavinia complained.

Alexander closed his eyes as he knelt before the fireplace. He slowly counted to five before replying, “It is a place for contemplation and study, Lavinia. To shut out the world.”

“It is very… you. Always trying to keep the world outside—and by world, I mean the ton.”

She sat and carefully arranged her skirt to show it off to its best as well as herself.

“Yes, the ton is where your world begins and ends, I remember,” Alexander said, sitting opposite her.

“Is that criticism?” Lavinia asked, skirting close to the limits of propriety with her tone. Just a touch of insolence, probably what she thought she was owed.

“An observation,” Alexander corrected. “What did you want to discuss, Lavinia? I take it you did not come to the museum for any other reason than to find me.”

Lavinia laughed, a delicate melodic sound. “I thought I would find you here when your stepmother told me that you were not at home. I thought I would try here before seeking you at Finsbury. That is where your other house in town is situated?”

“It is.”

“It took me some time to overcome my anger and grief at losing you, Alexander,” she continued, looking at him from under long, fluttering lashes.

Her bosom heaved as though she breathed deeper out of trepidation. There were spots of color in her cheeks.