Page 9 of Where Have All the Scoundrels Gone (Dukes in Disguise #2)
Chapter Nine
Nathaniel punctuated the end of his obligatory second dance with Miss Anne Devensham with a perfectly correct bow over her slender gloved fingers.
She was a nice enough girl, he mused absently, looking down upon the pin-straight center part on top of her demurely bowed head. Her shiny blond hair, combed tightly down to explode in two masses of ringlets about her ears, had a yellowish tint to it that he did not care for. It looked brassy, not like the deep antique gold of...
Clearing his throat, Nathaniel offered his arm to Miss Devensham and escorted her toward the punch bowl. He responded to her pretty forays into small talk by rote.
It required only a small percentage of his attention; the rest was engaged in scanning the ballroom for his quarry, the Honorable Peter Romby. Likely the wastrel had already escaped into the card room, and Nathaniel determined to head in that direction himself as soon as he'd managed to deposit his dance partner back with her mother.
Miss Devensham sipped her punch as if trying to make the cup last all night. Concealing his impatience, Nathaniel said, “And how are you finding this season, Miss Devensham?”
“Oh la,” she trilled. “What an exciting time it is! I do so love to dance. Especially with such an accomplished partner. You are a very fine dancer, Your Grace.”
Judging by the hopeful glance she slanted up at him from beneath her lashes, he was meant to return the compliment. Nathaniel held in a sigh.
These forms and patterns of polite society had been ingrained in him at a very young age. They were comfortable and easy to follow, but he did still find them tedious at times.
They were a means to an end. One could not expect to wield power and influence over a society in which one did not take part.
That meant following the rules, spoken and unspoken. It meant saying the correct things, dancing with the hostess’s daughter and eventually marrying a lady of perfect manners and breeding who would wield power and influence of her own as his wife.
This girl, Miss Anne Devensham, was an objectively attractive prospect for the title of Duchess of Ashbourn.
She clearly agreed, from the way she blushed and smiled with delight when he dutifully complimented her dancing in turn. At length, she finished her punch and reluctantly consented to be conveyed parent-ward.
As they skirted the dance floor, their way was blocked by a gaggle of gentlemen standing in a large cluster, all gathered around some central point.
Nathaniel frowned. “Pardon me.”
None of the gentlemen spared him a glance. Impatient, Nathaniel prepared to use his greater bulk to muscle through the crowd, but an achingly familiar soft laugh arrested him.
There was a woman at the center of the group. A woman who radiated a calm confidence and innocent pleasure in the attention of all these fawning gentlemen.
And they were fawning. Eyes avid, rapacious smiles, all leaning in like hungry boys pressing their noses to the counter at a sweet shop.
Small wonder. In a gown of bronze silk that Nathaniel had chosen for her, Bess Pickford gleamed among the profusion of pastels like a gold sovereign coin in a bouquet of flowers. Every eye went straight to her.
Nathaniel’s certainly did. He could not look away, even when the lady on his arm tittered nervously and said, “My gracious, who is that?”
In all honesty, Nathaniel hardly recognized her. Or perhaps it was himself he could not recognize in the intensity of his reaction to seeing Bess surrounded by admiring men begging her for a dance.
He wanted to take them apart, one by one, with his bare hands. And then he wanted to pull every stitch of the clothing he’d bought for her off her body and put his mark on her in a way no one would ever mistake again.
“Your Grace?” Miss Devensham prompted, smiling tensely. “Shall we rejoin Mama?”
“Yes, of course,” Nathaniel said, with a short bow. He glanced at the gentleman closest to them. “Lord Edgewood?”
The stripling turned with a quizzical look on his affable face. “Ah, Ashbourn! Didn't see you there! Quite a crush tonight, what?”
“Quite. Would you be so kind as to escort the lovely Miss Devensham back to her mother? I must speak with Mrs. Pickford about a matter of great importance.”
As he spoke, Nathaniel smoothly transferred Miss Devensham's gloved hand from his arm to the crook of Edgewood's elbow.
“But—” the girl began, just as Edgewood blinked and stammered, “Why, certainly, I’d be honored, don’t you know.”
“I am in your debt.” Nathaniel gave the startled pair another brief bow, curt enough to border on rudeness, and turned back to the task of looming over the men who stood between him and the belle of tonight's ball.
One by one, the gentlemen who’d flocked to her side and blocked Nathaniel’s way became aware of the large, incensed duke breathing down the back of their necks. One by one, they blanched and moved aside. Until finally he stood before Mrs. Pickford...who gave him a single cool glance before turning aside to continue her conversation with Earl Adair.
It was like a red flag waved beneath the nose of a bull.
Nathaniel strode forward, intending—he hardly knew what. Intending to blacken Adair’s eye for him, because he had the effrontery to admire a beautiful woman in a beautiful dress?
Momentum carried Nathaniel close enough to hear Adair saying, “Ah, Siren, do not tell me the dinner dance has already been claimed, or I shall throw myself from the balcony in despair.”
“Nonsense,” the siren replied in her pragmatic way. “The balcony is half a story up, at most. All you would accomplish is to break your ankle.”
Adair laughed, utterly charmed, and Nathaniel nearly snarled audibly. He must have made some noise, in fact, because Mrs. Pickford turned her narrow gaze to Nathaniel and said, “How kind of you to spare a moment for us, Your Grace.”
“Where the devil is my sister,” he demanded.
Her expression chilled a degree further. “Lucy is dancing with Lord Meriwether, at the moment. Which you would know if you had greeted us when we arrived. But as you can see, we have managed tolerably well without you.”
A hot wash of shame shocked through him. She was entirely correct; he ought to have made a point to escort his sister to her first ball.
His business could have waited. He should’ve ridden with them in the carriage and introduced Lucy to their hostess himself.
The realization that he had failed in his self-appointed duty made his back teeth clench. “May I have a word with you in private?”
“Poor show,” protested Adair. “Give the other fellows a chance, Ashbourn!”
“This lady is meant to be chaperoning Lady Lucy,” Nathaniel snapped. “She hasn't the time to waste on flirting.”
Color suffused her cheeks. It was damnably pretty. “Surely a private conference is unnecessary, Your Grace. I wouldn’t wish to take you away from your charming dance partner. Lucy is perfectly well, as I have already said.”
“My dance partner has returned to her mother,” Nathaniel replied through gritted teeth. “I require a moment of your time, nothing more.”
Without waiting for acquiescence, he smoothly tucked her hand through the crook of his elbow and swept her toward the refreshment table. In moments, they’d left her bevy of disappointed admirers behind.
“You are causing a scene,” she murmured under her breath, clearly flustered.
Having her on his arm, away from those other slavering males, undressing her with their eyes and coveting her attention, soothed something in Nathaniel’s chest. It was replaced with a naked possessiveness he knew would ruin him if he gave it free rein.
“There is nothing inappropriate in taking a turn about the room with my sister’s chaperone,” he said coolly. “Certainly no more inappropriate than that same chaperone ignoring her duties in favor of dazzling every male with a pulse and working eyesight.”
Her flush deepened and spread. “You are the one who ignored us! I can tell you exactly where Lucy is, I’ve hardly taken my eyes off her for a moment. She’s right over—oh!”
Nathaniel followed her dismayed gaze across the ballroom to where Lucy stood near a door that must lead to the ladies’ retiring room. He relaxed when he saw that no importunate suitors had accosted her; rather, she was in the company of several other young ladies.
Bess, on his arm, was the opposite of relaxed. She began to tow him in the direction of her wayward charge, cutting a swath through the other partygoers.
Bemused, Nathaniel followed without protest until they were close enough to overhear one particularly tall, sharp-featured young lady give a tittering laugh and say, “Oh, Lucy, how droll you are!”
“Am I?” Lucy appeared calm, but Nathaniel was surprised to realize he knew her facial expressions well enough to be able to read the frustration in the tightness of her jaw. “I didn’t intend to be amusing. I only inquired whether any of you had received my letters.”
A chorus of uncomfortable giggles erupted from the other three girls, who had not yet noticed they had an audience.
“Who has time to write letters, when there is so much to do in Town,” cried the tallest girl, fluttering her fan madly.
“I thought my friends might,” Lucy replied, her face still and remote. “But clearly I was mistaken.”
There was a beat of awkward silence.
“Well, if you’re going to be an utter bore about it,” one of the other girls said, tipping up her soft chin and linking arms with the other debutantes. “Come along, Emilia. Prudence. I believe I see our dance partners waiting by the refreshment table for the quadrille to start. Lucy, we must find a time to catch up! I long to hear all about your life in…where was it? Little Pissington?”
The impertinent chits tittered again and gave Lucy perfunctory curtsies before sweeping off. Lucy clenched her fists at her sides, lips tight, and for a moment Nathaniel half-feared she might go after them. But then her shoulders slumped and she turned away with a sigh, only to catch sight of Nathaniel and Mrs. Pickford.
“Oh, Lucy,” Mrs. Pickford said in sympathetic tones. Nathaniel could tell she wanted to sweep Lucy up in a comforting embrace, but he clamped his hand over her fingers on his arm and held her still. She looked up at him in irritated confusion.
“Please may we go back to Ashbourn House,” Lucy said, her voice strained. Tears stood in the corners of her blue eyes, but Nathaniel saw, with a surge of pride, that she would not let them fall.
“Of course,” Mrs. Pickford rushed to say, but Nathaniel shook his head. Running away was the last thing Lucy should do at this moment.
“Dance with me,” he commanded, finally letting go of Mrs. Pickford with a pang of loss he ignored. “And if you still want to leave at the end of one dance, we shall.”
Lucy bit her lip. Nathaniel experienced an unwanted, unexpected stab of empathy. “Come, Lucy. You’re an Ashbourn. Never let them see you defeated.”
He wondered if she’d crumple, but she lifted her head and set her shoulders back. Her eyes glittered in a heart-shaped face that reminded him suddenly, strangely, of their shared father.
For all that she had her mother’s coloring, Lucy had the look of the Ashbourns about her, he realized distantly. The high forehead and the straight, dark slashes of her brows. The set of her chin.
And when she gathered her skirts in one hand and placed the gloved fingers of her other hand in his, allowing him to lead her out on the floor, Nathaniel recognized a bit of himself in her, as well.
He felt a swell of something warm and fierce in his chest, and it discomfited him. Glancing over Lucy’s shoulder, his gaze tangled with Mrs. Pickford’s as she watched them go. The way she looked at him, as though she’d never seen him before…Nathaniel swallowed thickly and turned away.
The orchestra struck up their tune, and Nathaniel watched with quiet approval as Lucy gracefully took up her place opposite him. They began the complicated steps of the set, coming together and turning away again, until the promenade up the rows of other dancers afforded them a moment to speak.
Unwilling to let it lie, Nathaniel clipped out, “Is that how you’ve been treated by everyone this evening?”
“Most people have been polite enough.” Lucy shrugged, but when she looked up, her eyes snapped fire. “But I don’t see why you bothered with all the business of forcing me to come live with you and buying me all these dresses if you planned to abandon me at my very first ball.”
That lick of shame again. The knowledge that he had done wrong, hadn’t lived up to his own standards.
It occurred to Nathaniel that he might have been hasty when took on the role of head of this family. There was more to it than he’d originally thought.
“You are right,” he said plainly. “I should have been here. You should have made your debut on the arm of your brother. I apologize.”
The pattern of the dance pulled them apart once more, but not before Nathaniel noted the surprised widening of her eyes.
When they faced each other again, Lucy replied, “I…appreciate your apology. But I’m not sure it would have made a difference, anyway. My so-called friends couldn’t wait to make sure I knew how far I’d fallen. All with a smile, of course.”
“Appearing on your own, without the full force of the dukedom behind you, made it worse.”
They wouldn’t dare to look down on Lucy when she was on his arm. He’d make sure of that.
“Ugh, all of this, all of these people,” Lucy burst out. “How can you stand it? It’s all so…false.”
He didn’t tell her he coped by occasionally beating the stuffing out of another man in an illegal, illicit bareknuckle boxing ring.
Too bad she can’t go to The Nemesis and face off against some bruiser , Nathaniel thought with some amusement. She’d probably love it.
“False friendship is fine, as long as one sees it for what it is,” he replied.
She scowled darkly. “I prefer honest enmity.”
“I’m sure you do.”
The music slowed as they came to the end of the set, and Nathaniel bowed over his sister’s hand. “What do you say, Lucy? Shall we go home? Or shall we stay and show all your false friends how high you can soar?”
Her blue eyes narrowed on his face. “I’m not sure I like the fact that you seem to understand exactly what motivates me.”
“And what is that?”
She smiled a little. “Why, spite, of course. I’ll stay.”
“Well done,” he said softly, and tried not to feel anything at the way she glowed a bit at the praise. “Now, let me introduce you to some acquaintances of mine. Lord John Findlay is considered very charming and respectable. Do try not to shock him.”
Nathaniel was conscious of the eyes upon them as he escorted Lucy away from the dancing. The other guests would be taking note of the attention he paid to his sister; they would be recalling the ugly history of their family’s estrangement and concluding that perhaps it had come to an end at last.
He stayed by Lucy’s side long enough to ensure that every last gossip in the room got a good look at them together.
Just before he handed her off to Lord John, Lucy glanced up at him and said, with an impulsive earnestness that charmed him against his will, “Thank you. You didn’t have to buck me up like that, so. Thanks. You were right; I would have regretted leaving and letting the Prudences of the world win. How did you know?”
Memory tugged at him, but he gritted his teeth and smiled through it. “I have some experience with bullies. It’s usually better to face them head on. Show no weakness.”
Weakness—vulnerability—was punished. Swiftly and painfully. Nathaniel knew that better than most.
He made the introductions, watching eagle-eyed to be certain Lord John comprehended the honor being granted him, and finally allowed the young couple to wander off in the direction of the refreshment table.
The rest of the party was tedious but uneventful. He’d missed his chance with Lord Romby, but he would run the man to ground eventually. Lucy ended up dancing nearly every dance, only sitting out the waltz, which was still considered slightly scandalous for girls in their very first Season.
Nathaniel kept his eye on her, and he couldn’t help noticing that across the ballroom Lucy’s chaperone was watching attentively as well. Mrs. Pickford was occasionally approached by a hopeful gentleman, but she seemed to effortlessly and gracefully rebuff them all. Nathaniel knew he ought to feel badly about that—he’d ruined her evening, most likely, with his display of temper earlier.
But if was honest with himself, he had to admit that it pleased something dark and wild inside him to see her turning away admirer after admirer.
God. What was wrong with him?
He’d apologized to Lucy. He ought to apologize to Mrs. Pickford as well.
He didn’t get a chance until they were in the carriage on the ride home.
Exhausted and overstimulated, unused to keeping such late hours, Lucy had climbed into the carriage and immediately kicked off her slippers to curl her feet under her on the seat. Before Nathaniel could give her more than a disapproving glance, she’d leaned her head against Mrs. Pickford’s shoulder and dropped off to sleep.
The carriage rumbled through the fog, the only sound the wheels against the damp cobblestones and Lucy’s deep, even breaths.
Nathaniel bent all his considerable will to not thinking about the last time he’d been in a carriage with Mrs. Pickford.
“What you did for Lucy in there,” she said abruptly. “That was a good thing.”
Nathaniel’s hands clenched against the edge of the velvet-covered seat. He forced them to relax. “I merely offered her the opportunity to be brave. She was the one who took it.”
“My own instinct was to retreat,” she admitted. “Or even to have Lucy try to smooth things over with them.”
He frowned. “Lucy did nothing wrong.”
“Of course she didn’t,” Bess agreed, but there was a twist to her lips that he didn’t like. “But the world is not kind to people who ruffle the waters. Especially women.”
“Lucy is a duke’s daughter. A duke’s sister.” Nathaniel knew his tone had taken on an autocratic chill, but he couldn’t soften it. “She should never have to scrape and bow to her social inferiors.”
“Of course.”
She hadn’t moved, but Nathaniel felt with frustration that she had retreated from him.
Desperate, for some reason, to bridge the distance he sensed, Nathaniel said, “I hope you had a tolerably pleasant evening. Despite the fact that I barged into your conversation with Earl Adair and those other dandies.”
“It was fine,” she said. “Better than I feared, in some respects. I had worried we might run afoul of that same group of lords who accosted Lucy on the Thames riverbank.”
The memory heated Nathaniel’s blood with anger.
“Unlikely,” he said. “That gang of thugs in gentlemen’s clothing. They rarely darken the doors of a polite gathering; I believe they prefer carousing at routs more likely to include opera dancers than debutantes.”
“Good, then we probably won’t encounter them again.”
“You shouldn’t. Come to me at once if you do.”
“Certainly I will, if you can be found,” she replied, tart as a lemon.
He felt his jaw tighten. “I’m sorry I wasn’t on hand to escort you into the ballroom.”
“For my part, you are welcome to dance with whomever you choose, of course,” she said quickly. Was she…jealous? Were her cheeks pink? Impossible to tell in the darkness of the carriage. “I only minded for Lucy’s sake.”
A long pause ensued. Nathaniel cast about for a way to break the silence.
“Do you think Lucy enjoyed herself?” he asked.
“She didn’t pour ratafia punch on anyone's head. I suppose we must take that as a victory.”
“She looked very lovely tonight.” He cleared his throat. “As do you.”
“Lucy is a very lovely girl. And this is such a beautiful gown, it would make any woman look and feel her best.” She swallowed; he watched the movement of her slim throat in fascination. “I didn’t thank you, before. In your study.”
Nathaniel’s chest tightened. “Do not thank me. I didn't order the gowns to put you in my debt.”
“No, I know. You were thinking only of the honor of your house. I hope I haven’t disgraced the illustrious Ashbourn name.”
“You could not,” he said hoarsely.
She muttered something under her breath that sounded like, “Don’t be too sure.” The carriage passed under a street lamp, briefly illuminating the interior in a wash of thin, golden light. He was struck anew by her loveliness.
“Lucy behaved very well, I thought,” he blundered on. “Once she made up her mind to it.”
“For a duke, you care a great deal what other people think.”
The observation surprised him. “I don’t, actually. Most people don’t think, and if they do, their thoughts aren’t worth much.”
“Then why does it matter what is seemly or the done thing and all the rest of it? Why can Lucy not simply be herself?”
“Lucy can and should be herself, but she must also recognize that in order to be part of society—any society, not just the so-called Polite Society—she must follow its rules. Or she must at least be able to give the appearance of doing so. There are rules for a reason. If everyone in the world did just as they liked, what sort of world would it be?”
“A free one?” She shrugged, lifting Lucy’s head slightly and doing interesting things to the expanse of creamy flesh above the bodice of her gown. “We supposedly live in a free society here in England, yet there seem to be many rules to follow and strictures to observe. For women, especially.”
“You’re right.” Nathaniel could see he’d startled her by agreeing. “Freedom is relative, unfortunately. People experience it differently; for women of our class who wish to move in the highest circles, there is more freedom to be had by trading some absolutely authentic personal expression, shall we say, for the mask of propriety. It may seem paradoxical, but wearing a mask can be very freeing.”
He certainly found it so, at The Nemesis. But those thoughts had no place here, with her.
“Hm. Seems to me there’s nothing freer than taking off all masks and just being who you are with no artifice or pretense about it, but I’m no philosopher. I know you’re correct about Society having rules that must be obeyed. It’s different here than at home. I was lucky to be brought up in a community that values people more than propriety.”
He couldn’t imagine such a mythical place. “That sounds nice. Is that where you lived with your late husband? What was his occupation?”
He wouldn’t have been surprised by almost any answer she gave, by the news that her husband had been a country squire or a rector or even a soldier. Instead, she managed to shock him in a different way.
“Don’t you think you might call me Bess, instead of Mrs. Pickford?” Her voice was light, but strained at the edges. “Since I am a member of your household, as we have established.”
It pains her to speak of him , Nathaniel realized with a pang he did not like. Maybe it even hurt her to be called by his name, the name she’d taken when she married him—this decent, kind man. Because surely this woman would not settle for anything less.
A decent, kind, dead man whom Nathaniel hated.
“It wouldn’t be proper,” he told her with some reluctance. “Your married name is a title of respect.”
“I’ve never understood that. Why are landladies in pubs and even unmarried housekeepers in great houses called Missus So-and-So? She does the same job either way, no matter what name she goes by! Unmarried women deserve the same respect as those who’ve taken a husband. Perhaps more, for they must make their own way in a world that sees them as less.”
“So you’ve read Wollstonecraft as well as Keats.”
She huffed. “Come, it’s far more surprising that you have any familiarity with Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s work than that I do.”
Nathaniel inclined his head in acknowledgement, thoroughly enjoying the chance to speak with someone who loved books and reading as much as he always had. His father had despaired of Nathaniel’s bookishness; he would’ve much preferred a son who played with toy soldiers and clamored to learn to ride and shoot.
“I hear what you’re saying, and it’s an idea with some merit,” he allowed. “A radical idea, mind you, but not without merit. I don’t know that I can call you Bess, however.”
Her lips twisted. “Too common.”
His hands flexed, knuckles throbbing under the tight gloves. “Too familiar. When I have already treated you far too familiarly.”
Let me keep some distance , he wanted to beg.
Her eyes gleamed in the dim light. He thought she looked sympathetic, as though she’d heard his silent plea yet could not relent. “I would prefer familiarity to a sham of respect.”
“It’s not a sham. I do respect you,” he protested, then grimaced. “I should not have shouted at you earlier, when you came to my study. I…apologize.”
Her twinkling smile was easily visible across the carriage, bright and full of laughter. It lifted his heart to see it, so much that he didn’t even mind that she was clearly laughing at him.
“Ouch, did that hurt? You seem a man unaccustomed to apologizing, and how many is that now, in a single evening? I shouldn’t like you to strain yourself.”
“I’ll survive,” he said drily.
“Just as you’ll survive calling me Bess!” She smiled at him again, that sunshine smile. Nathaniel was still blinking the dazzle from his eyes when he realized how neatly she’d maneuvered him.
“Fine. Bess.”
She went quiet and pleased. Nathaniel liked it.
The carriage rolled to a stop in front of Ashbourn House, and a footman opened the door and let down the step to help Bess alight. A murmured word from Nathaniel sent the footman inside to fetch Lucy’s lady’s maid, who appeared, yawning, to help her mistress up to bed.
Mrs. Pickford—Bess—made to follow them, and before he could convince himself it was a terrible idea, he’d said, “Would you care to join me for a nightcap in the drawing room?”
What was he doing ? Nathaniel cursed himself for a fool, but when Bess smiled up at him and agreed, he couldn’t regret it.
The drawing room candles seemed glaring after the darkness of the carriage. Nathaniel both feared and hoped the odd, fragile intimacy that had sprung up between them would dissipate as he busied himself pouring brandy into two cut crystal glasses.
Settling herself on a rose damask loveseat, Bess accepted the brandy with a nod of thanks. “It was very kind of you to share your experience of bullies with Lucy.”
Knocked off balance, Nathaniel felt the edges of the fine crystal bite into his too-tight grasp. “Don’t cast me as some sort of downtrodden victim. My childhood was extremely privileged. I had all that I required and no cause for complaint.”
“Goodness.” She raised her brows over the rim of her glass as she took a sip. “If that is the best you can say about it, it must have been awful.”
“Not at all,” he replied stiffly. For a moment, he wished he was the sort of man who could respond to her gentle teasing with humor and flirtation. With a light touch.
But nature had gifted him with heavy fists instead.
Unable to let lie the implication that he’d had a terrible childhood, Nathaniel moved closer to the fireplace and stared down at the flickering flames.
“When my mother was alive, she ruled her social set, and our household, with an iron fist in a kid glove. People listened when she spoke. Well, not my father—he never seemed to be listening to much of anything that was going on around him. But other people, people who mattered. She had influence, arguably because of how well she followed those rules you dislike so much. And she used that influence wisely.”
“Oh? In what way?”
He debated how much to say. There was no real way to talk about charitable endeavors without sounding as though he sought her approbation and approval, but there was a part of him that found he did want her to approve of his mother and her life’s work.
The work he now carried on in her stead, as best he could.
“There is a wing of the Foundling Hospital with her name on it,” he said slowly. “I insisted they name it for her when I came of age and learned more about the work she’d done with the children there.”
Bess’s voice was soft in the darkness, but she was not truly surprised. “Foundling children. That’s sweet.”
“Hm. Yes, a proper and even fashionable pursuit for a lady, taking an interest in the affairs of orphans. But my mother did much more than gather subscriptions or turn up on visiting days with a basket of goodies. Did you know that in the last century, for about a decade, the hospital opened its doors to receive any child in need?”
“That must have been a lot of children.”
“Almost fifteen thousand babies, all told, surrendered to country parishes all over England—and needing to make their way, somehow, from there to London. A booming trade cropped up, of men offering to convey the babies to the Foundling Hospital—for a fee, of course. The stories that began to be told of the abuses and cruelties of these men, to say nothing of their unreliability, reached my mother. And rather than throwing up her delicate hands or even organizing a party to raise money for a solution—she organized her friends and acquaintances instead. They commandeered their families’ coaches and drove out into the countryside, up and down the length and breadth of England, and picked up those unfortunate babes to bring them to the Foundling Hospital safely.”
“Goodness,” she breathed. “That’s not at all what I expected.”
Pride kindled in his chest. “In my mother’s letters and diaries, she chronicled how, between them and over the course of nearly ten years, the ladies my mother led rescued seven hundred and thirty-eight infants. From there they were fed, clothed, housed and taught a trade at the Foundling Hospital. Given a start in life.”
Augusta Lively, Duchess of Ashbourn, had loved children. Not in a way that involved making much of them, cuddling them close or listening to them prattle on—but she saw them as people whose young lives mattered when most of her class could barely be bothered to see their own offspring until they attained majority.
Much less could they be bothered about the fate of impoverished, unwanted children.
But Augusta, who had desperately wanted more children of her own and been disappointed so many times, could not support the notion that anyone would cast off a baby and leave it to suffer and die for want of someone to care about its existence.
So she had cared.
Bess regarded him gravely. Candlelight glinted off the sheen of moisture caught in her lashes. “It sounds a very necessary endeavor.”
“Parliament decided the hospital could not continue to take in every child who needed care; the demand was far too great and the costs astronomical. They didn’t want to pay. So the hospital was forced to implement a series of rules that regulate exactly who is allowed to surrender a child and receive aid.”
Her lips pressed together. “Let me guess. The mother must be spotlessly virtuous, aside from this one small slip of having been impregnated and then abandoned by a man. Whose virtue need not come into it at all.”
Appreciation for her quick wit and perceptiveness warmed Nathaniel’s chest. He took a sip of brandy to replace that fire with the more familiar burn of spirits.
“The reception committee must also see some sort of proof that surrendering the baby will place the mother back on the path of righteousness, never to sin again.”
“And you…disagree with these rules?”
Nathaniel disliked the skeptical tilt of her left brow.
“They seem to me both unnecessarily harsh and difficult to put into practice effectively,” he said stiffly. “How is a woman to prove future virtue? And is her child less in need of help if it is not that mother’s first slip? I have also seen families in desperate straits with too many mouths to feed turned away from the hospital because the father is still at home. But their need is as great as anyone’s.”
She finished her glass of brandy and stood to set the empty glass on the tray beside the decanter. The move brought her into touching distance of Nathaniel, close enough that he could smell the sugared almond scent of her hair.
“What I disagree with,” he concluded doggedly, “is the necessity of having these rules at all. I would far rather see Parliament take up the funding of the hospital again, and indeed expand upon its mission.”
A light came into her pretty brown eyes as she gazed up at him. “And that is what you are working on every day, in your study and at the House of Lords.”
“I’m only carrying on my mother’s work,” he said dismissively, uncomfortable with the way she looked at him. As though she saw everything he wished to keep hidden.
“I understand now why you admired your mother so,” she said softly. “There is much to admire about anyone who sees a problem and does what is necessary to solve it. It certainly seems a much better use of a wealthy lady’s time and energy than balls and dancing.”
“I know you had no wish to attend the ball tonight.”
She shrugged. “It’s not what I came to London for.”
His heart quickened. There was so little he knew about this woman; he was hungry for every scrap of information she dropped. “What did you come to London hoping for, beyond helping my sister find her place in society?”
* * *
Bess froze, caught out. She should never have accepted a glass of brandy on an empty stomach, it had gone straight to her head.
The brandy, and the unaccustomed thrill of being alone with Ashbourn and having him tell her all these serious, closely held things about his past. About his hopes for the future.
It was no wonder she’d fallen into the intimacy of the moment. But how could she answer his question?
When the answer was, embarrassingly, I hoped to find a scoundrel to bed me?
Nervously, she retreated a pace and bumped into the drinks cart, making the crystal chime. Ashbourn caught her by the shoulder to steady her—the shoulder bared by the wide neckline of the bronze gown. His fingers were strong and hot on her skin. Bess stared up at him, her heart drumming against her ribs.
“Careful,” he said, his voice a gentle rumble that shook through her like thunder.
Bess’s mouth went dry even as other parts of her body became humid and slippery with heat.
He looked at her as if he’d no wish to ever look at anything else again.
After the strange letdown she’d felt when he’d been too busy dancing with someone else to notice their arrival at the ball tonight, Bess had to admit to herself that his undivided attention felt good.
She needed to keep her head, she knew. A night like this was practically designed to make a woman forget everything but the fantasy of romance. She was still wearing the beautiful gown he’d bought her, standing close in the flickering firelight, with fine French brandy swirling in her veins.
And this man. Gazing down at her with those cool, intent eyes of his, heat and interest lurking in their depths.
They were almost blue today, the pale blue of the sky reflected in a frozen lake.
The things he said, the tiny glimpses of a beating heart beneath the cold, marble-hard exterior. The hints of his desire.
He wanted her.
It hurt—because as surely as Bess knew that Ashbourn desired her, she knew that he would never act on that desire.
A man as obsessed with honor and legacy and propriety as Nathaniel Lively? A man who hated his own father for marrying ‘beneath him’? He would never lower himself to someone like Bess.
For God’s sake, he’d had her on his lap in that carriage, the day they met, and he hadn’t done more than nuzzle her neck.
And that was without him knowing the truth about who she was.
If he found out Bess was nothing more than a cook in a coaching inn, the daughter of a mere tenant farmer…she shuddered to imagine his reaction.
No, he would marry Miss Devensham, or another lady like her, with perfect breeding and comportment and understanding of all the rules of the Ton. Someone who could help him with his great work.
And Bess would find someone else to give her the adventure—the memories—she’d come to London for.
She had yet to answer his question, and the moment stretched between them like a sheet pulled taut over a mattress.
He was still touching her, his hand resting heavily on her shoulder. His thumb moved, brushing gently against the side of her neck, and Bess shuddered.
There was barely more than a breath between them. If he bent down, their lips would meet.
Despite herself, everything in Bess tensed, lit up and thrilled and alive to the possibility that his lips would brush hers—but they didn’t.
Instead, Ashbourn dropped his hand and stepped back.
Bess stumbled away from him, unable to look him in the face and hating herself for being disappointed. For hoping in the first place.
She knew better.
“Good night, Your Grace,” she choked out, and fled without another glance at him.
He let her go.
Bess all but ran up the stairs to her bedchamber, breath coming fast and sharp. Away from him. Away from the temptation to hope where she shouldn’t, rather than attempt what she could.
She would not waste any more time mooning about after a man like the Duke of Ashbourn, who was as far out of her reach as the north star.
She’d learned early and well that life was short. Too short for regrets and what ifs.
To Bess, it was akin to a sin to squander the time she’d been given—this one chance she had to live her life, the life her family and Davy wouldn’t get.
It was time to forget about the Duke of Ashbourn.