Once and Future Duchess Read online

  But I am counting on you. And if you will not take a crack at him, I assure you one of the ladies on the list I gave you will.

  Your Faithful, Fearless Sovereign from the House of Hanover,

  G.

  Isabelle lowered the royal letter into the candle’s flame. Being the Prince Regent’s favored secret correspondent had its benefits and its price. Unfortunately, usually the price was double the benefits. And if she did not keep a good sense of humor firmly in place, humiliation was sure to result.

  She reached for one of the quills from the stand on her escritoire and absently brushed the small raven feather under her chin before dashing off a response.

  Thankfully, the rest of the morning’s correspondence, ledgers, and daily household reports and decisions to be taken were far less intriguing.

  The afternoon was just the opposite.

  Hyde Park was the inferno of the equestrian world during the Season. Landaus vied with cabriolets, and curricles sidled up to phaetons while solitary riders negotiated the vast squeeze of vehicles circling the popular venue. During the Little Season, when the summer leaves began to turn and wither, one could breathe a bit more, for only the most determined resided in Town.

  But this afternoon it was hot.

  No matter, Isabelle was determined to escape March House and the worries that plagued her. And so she had her stable master bring ’round the well-­sprung landau and the matched grays. She, Amelia Primrose, and Calliope would go for a drive during the fashionable hour of the unfashionable season.

  Tonight she was attending a ball given by Lord and Lady Allen for their daughter, who was recently affianced to their future son-­in-­law. She had no doubt that James would make a rare appearance, for the Allens were his neighbors. And their families had been friends for longer than France had fought England. There was also the matter of his promise after he had accepted the list from her hand. James was a gentleman who lived up to his word. She only hoped someone else from her own list would also decide to attend.

  “Why can’t I go?” Calliope’s face was hot with frustration.

  “Because you don’t like to dance,” Isabelle replied with a shrewd smile.

  “But I’m your companion. I must go.”

  “Companions do not decide these things,” Amelia Primrose informed.

  “They do sometimes. And you’re going. I can’t see why I may not, especially—­”

  Amelia interrupted. “I thought you wanted to see the curiosities at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly with me tomorrow.”

  “What has that to do with it?” Calliope crossed her arms, defiant. “I can do both, don’t you know. As I see it, the only benefit of being fourteen is I have more energy than older ­people. Don’t you agree, Isabelle?”

  “Indeed,” she replied, determined to hide her amusement, “I assure you that four years from now, your joints will be stiff in the morning, and gout will soon follow.” She looked toward Amelia for support.

  Amelia cleared her throat. “Of course you can do both, Calliope, but you promised to finish the painting you started for your cousin, and you also promised the housekeeper that you would help organize the baskets for the orphanage. If you do not keep promises to others, how can you expect others to keep their promises to you?”

  “A fine one to talk,” a masculine voice ground out nearby.

  A shadow had fallen across Isabelle and Amelia, who sat side by side, facing Calliope.

  “Sussex!” Isabelle exclaimed, delighted. “How lovely to see you.”

  His bay horse drew parallel with them and Isabelle’s carriage driver took her signal to veer to a shaded area for a moment’s conversation.

  “The feeling is entirely mutual, Isabelle,” said the most charming of all the dukes of the royal entourage.

  “It’s been an age,” she continued. “The last time I saw you, you were escaping Kress’s interminable house party without even a by your leave. Why did you depart so suddenly?”

  His famously green eyes, the color of jade, were focused solely on Amelia Primrose. “Why, I loathe the countryside of Cornwall, don’t you know,” he replied with a false smile. He finally glanced at Isabelle. “Far too many goats.”

  “Goats?” Isabelle echoed, suppressing a grin.

  “And cows, and chickens,” he continued. “But most of all there were too many dukes.”

  Calliope giggled. “There can never be too many dukes.”

  Amelia nudged her new charge’s foot to silence her.

  “There was a rumor that you disappeared because you took offense to the notion that the Sussex cow, Sussex chicken, and Sussex goat were inferior breeds,” Isabelle said finally allowing a hint of amusement to color her words.

  “There is no such thing as a Sussex goat,” he retorted dryly. Disgust marred his handsome face.

  “There should be,” Amelia whispered so quickly that Isabelle barely caught it.

  “I’m sorry,” Sussex intoned, narrowing his eyes in Amelia’s direction. “Did you say something?”

  “Nothing at all, Your Grace,” Amelia replied.

  “I heard her say something,” Calliope piped up.

  “What did she say, my sweet?”

  Isabelle felt a very odd frisson of fury radiating from Sussex, while Amelia’s face was as white as parchment. Isabelle gave her cousin a look, to no avail.

  “She said, ‘There should—­’ ” Calliope suddenly stopped when her eyes finally lit on Isabelle’s. “Uh . . . she suggested how fitting your title would be for a—­” Calliope blinked, “—­goat.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Edward Godwin, the third Duke of Sussex commented, his easy expression hiding something more.

  Amelia avoided his glare. “Do you know this person, Calliope?”

  “No.”

  “Perhaps a lady might wait until she is properly presented before she speaks to a strange gentlemen.”

  “And perhaps,” Sussex inserted, “a lady should wait until a strange gentleman has regained his wits before she has the audacity to—­”

  Amelia cut him off. “Perhaps if a gentleman did not imbibe strange spirits, they would not lose the wits they have in short supply.”

  What on earth? Isabelle’s neck hurt from whipping it between the two. “Sussex?” she inserted, in an attempt to detour the two combatants, “may I present to you my cousin, Miss Calliope Little?”

  “Delighted to meet you, Miss Little.”

  “Calliope,” Isabelle continued, “His Grace, Edward Godwin, Duke of Sussex.”

  “Ohhh,” Calliope breathed, “you’re the one.”

  “The one?” Sussex’s horse pawed the ground, impatient to move forward. He steadied him with an easy hand.

  “Yes,” Calliope continued. “The one all the ladies swoon over.”

  He burst out laughing.

  Amelia pursed her lips.

  “Not that I’ve witnessed it, to be sure. Some ­people”—­Calliope glanced at Isabelle and Amelia under her lashes—­“insist fourteen is too young to be out. What do you think, Your Grace?” Calliope blinked once.

  Edward Godwin, the Charmer, smiled shrewdly. “I think all the young gentlemen I know are going to need at least two more years practice to match wits with you, my dear.”

  Calliope wrinkled her nose and then giggled. “Everyone knows that young boys are useless.”

  His Grace threw back his head and laughed again.

  Isabelle rushed in while he was distracted. “Now that I think of it, Sussex,” she shaded her eyes against the glare of the sun, “I have a favor to ask.”

  He looked at Isabelle with kindness. “Of course, my dear. Anything for you. Anything at all.”

  “All this talk of presentations has me thinking.” She paused. “I would be most grateful if you would escort us to the Allens tonight. And perhaps . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “You would be kind enough to present several gentlemen to me from a list I possess.” She knew she could not
count on James.

  He shook his head. “So Prinny has turned his royal glare in your direction now?”

  Calliope’s eyes were as round and as wide as an owl’s peepers at midnight. She opened her mouth, but Amelia shook her head and Calliope closed it again.

  “I wish I could deny it,” Isabelle replied, “but I cannot. So, will you do me the honor?”

  He nodded to Amelia without looking at her. “Is she going?”

  It was the height of rudeness. So very unlike Sussex. And it flustered her.

  “Yes,” Isabelle replied, simply.

  “No,” Amelia Primrose said softly, “ ‘she’ is not.”

  “I thought Isabelle said you were going,” Calliope piped up innocently. “Don’t you remember? You said companions do not get to choose. Surely, you don’t get to choose either.”

  “How ridiculous, Calliope. Of course Amelia gets to choose,” Isabelle said with ill ease. “She is my guest at March House.”

  Calliope sighed. “I do believe we can all stop pretending she is not there to reform me.”

  “I prefer the title of abigail, dearest,” inserted Amelia.

  “All right,” Calliope agreed. “But surely abigails fall under the same category as companions in that they must pretend that their employer’s wishes are their own.”

  “Precisely,” Sussex said, an odd smile twisting his mouth. “Companions must do the bidding of their superiors. Sort of like wives, who must obey their husbands in all things.”

  Amelia’s beautiful eyes narrowed. “True, Your Grace. However, companions, abigails, or wives do not have to pay homage to goats.”

  Isabelle observed the two of them with fascination. She had never seen Sussex even mildly irritated by any female. And she would wager her very last farthing that rudeness of any sort had never crossed Amelia’s lips until now.

  Watching the battle of wits between these two beautiful creatures was sort of like witnessing an ancient, formal duel between two well-­matched opponents. And she was certain the reason Sussex was so infuriated was that he feared he might very well lose.

  Chapter 5

  James Fitzroy knew he was in too deep the moment he grasped his ivory-­handled walking stick from Wharton and struck out for the Allens’ town house half a block from his residence. A crush of waiting carriages stretched all around the square. Horses whinnied and stamped their hooves, drivers muttered oaths, and the high-­spirited giggles of hopeful young ladies permeated the air along with the scent of ripe manure. The latter was far more enticing than the former, he thought with customary displeasure.

  He wanted no part of this. The last time he’d accepted an invitation to a ball devised solely for the purpose of leg-­shackling in the guise of celebrating an upcoming leg-­shackle had been in the Year of our Lord Who Knows When. He’d sworn then, before all five of his sisters, that the next time he attended such frivolity it would be only to mark one of their weddings. He was grateful Verity’s union had been a very private affair not requiring a ball. Then again, after her brush with near ruin, he guessed she did not want to cause him any more headaches. His other four sisters would never marry despite their great fortunes. They were far too interested in their mathematical and scientific pursuits to allow the possibility of husbands dictating their lives.

  He could not have been more delighted. It was their choice, and his preference. One brother-­in-­law was enough. Abshire he could tolerate.

  Now.

  But it had not always been so.

  Twelve years ago James had watched Abshire cross a field toward him—­the limp body of his dead fiancée in Abshire’s arms. James had understood then that Catharine Talmadge had never loved him. Never wanted him—­only his title and his family’s position in society. She had loved Abshire, his best friend, who’d had nothing to his name in his youth.

  Abshire had duped him, and Catharine had too. Or so he had assumed. He had been cut off at the knees by the two ­people he trusted above all others.

  It was not until recently that the full story had emerged. Abshire had loved and secretly won the heart of Catharine well before James had courted the beauty. But Abshire had had pockets to let in his youth, a most unappealing state. And Catharine, fickle and with a mother who insisted a premier duke with a grand fortune trumped love with a penniless lord, secured James’s affections and eventual proposal of marriage. That did not, however, stop her from eventually throwing herself at Abshire. It all ended during a wildly impetuous attempt to impress Abshire by galloping a horse to a massive stonewall, and breaking her neck in the process.

  Both had been scarred and scorched to their cores. And it was only now, upon Abshire’s recent marriage to Verity, that each man had come to terms with the past.

  Almost.

  Abshire had come to terms with the past. James had come to terms with Abshire’s blamelessness. He understood ladies in their youth were often fickle.

  He was not the first man to learn this.

  Isabelle’s father, his godfather, had learned it before him. And had suffered greatly due to it.

  The worst and most prolific cases always involved a young lady with an older gentleman. Not that he blamed them, no. Ladies in their prime should not have to spoon-­feed porridge to toothless old codgers.

  It was the reason he had stopped going to balls, entertainments in which ladies just out of the schoolroom were often thrust under the noses of much older gentlemen by order of fortune and rank. He had them both in abundance.

  Initially, he had followed society’s rules, chosen the brightest flower, seen her dead in another man’s arms, and had a host of new blooms thrust under his nose within a sennight; all offered to soothe his disappointment. They knew nothing about him.

  No one did. He did not want to reopen the cage to his heart. It was far easier to perform the duties of the role he was tasked to play from birth, enjoy family intellectual pursuits in private, and go on with life.

  Very soon thereafter, he lost all interest in blooms, and flowers, and young ladies with marriage on their mothers’ minds.

  And yet here he was again. In a moment of dizzying déjà vu he was taking the stone stairs two at a time up to the entrance of a town house near his own. Just beyond the polished mahogany doors, footmen silently accepted his walking stick, his hat, and his second pair of stark white gloves. In this inner sanctum of future doomed engagements, the hum of more than one hundred guests could be heard. He nodded to the footman outside the ballroom doors and they were opened for him.

  The buzz of the crowd quieted and half the room looked toward him. And then the hum redoubled its original sound.

  He was back.

  And with a damned list this time.

  Isabelle had given up hope. He was not coming after all. Despite his promise. Despite her list. Despite everything. He was not coming. It was not like him to break his promise to anyone.

  The ball had begun, and Sussex had done his part admirably. The dance card tied to her wrist with gray ribbon over her long white kid gloves was full. He’d introduced her to three of the aristocrats on Prinny’s list, and then three more who were not. The latter were far more intriguing. Oh, who was she kidding? There was really only one interesting gentleman, a rear admiral of the Royal Navy, splendidly impressive with his strict posture, military dark blue coat with gold epaulets, and an economy of words. What was it about the silent, proper ones that aroused interest? Why couldn’t she be attracted to the charming, vociferous gentlemen who complimented and smiled with ease?

  And so she danced. She danced the opening set with Lord Allen. She danced the second with Lord Pierson. The third was reserved for Sussex, who did little to satisfy Isabelle’s curiosity concerning his uncharacteristic ill-­humor with Amelia Primrose. He often glanced toward the abigail, sitting with a group of matrons.

  Halfway through the supper dance with Rear Admiral Sir Peter Baird, the hum of the guests intensified and Isabelle glanced toward the door.

 
He had arrived.

  James was taller and broader of shoulder than all the other gentlemen in the ballroom. Or perhaps it was his stature and bearing that gave the impression of great height. He raised his quizzing glass to his eye and surveyed the room. Oh, he was the only man Isabelle knew who could do that without looking like a portentous nonesuch with an icicle stuck in his, ahem, throat. She smiled to herself. She had not allowed anyone to claim the second to last set on her dance card.

  It was hard to extinguish hope.

  The music from the small orchestra situated on the long side of the ballroom came to a conclusion.

  “Your Grace,” the rear admiral said quietly, “shall we go in search of supper? Would you prefer to dine inside or out?”

  “Oh, the terrace would be preferable, don’t you think? It’s so warm inside.” She spied James still surveying the ballroom. Every person in the gilded chamber had stood a little straighter when he entered. The premier duke had condescended to attend, and no one would miss an opportunity to be noticed by him.

  “Indeed,” the rear admiral replied, his pale blue eyes twinkling. “The stars are always preferable to candlelight.”

  He offered his arm and she grasped it as he guided her toward the opposite chamber filled with fare for the most discriminating palate. After offering her the choicest morsels from the silver ser­vice, he guided her beyond the French doors to the tables arranged on the latticed terrace overlooking one of the largest, most beautiful private gardens in London. Torches and potted palms dotted the railing, while a handful of lanterns set off pretty patterns in the leaves of the trees for those who ventured beyond the terrace.

  “How long have you been a member of the Royal Navy, sir?” Isabelle lowered herself onto one of the exotic Chinese dining chairs as the officer did the same across from her. So far no one else had chosen to dine outside.

  “Since I was a boy of eleven, Your Grace,” he replied.

  “Were you acquainted with Admiral Nelson?”

  “Indeed,” he replied with a kind smile, “I was a lucky fellow. My father was a distant relation and I was volunteered to serve him.”