How to Tame Your Duke(17)

"Yes, sir." The waiter bowed and left.

Emilie folded her hands in her lap. The unbroken stretch of her skirt  felt foreign beneath her fingers. Her chignon rested heavily on her  neck, and she resisted the urge to touch beneath the brim and assure  herself that some stray lock hadn't fallen away from its pins to betray  her. "Are you certain this is wise? Meeting like this."

"Well, you can't simply meet me as Mr. Grimsby, when someone about town  might recognize you and ask questions," said Miss Dingleby. "And nobody  here would recognize you as Emilie, particularly without your  spectacles, and particularly in tête-à-tête with a young man."

"But it's so public. So exposed. Anyone might see us."

"My dear, if we were to meet furtively behind the inn, or steal upstairs  to a bedroom, we would most certainly be suspected. The best place to  hide a clandestine meeting"-Miss Dingleby waved her hand, and her signet  ring flashed in the bright electric light-"is in plain sight."

Emilie glanced idly at a nearby table. "Is it necessary, though?"

"Your uncle wishes to assure himself of your well-being."

"But surely my letters . . ."

"Could easily be forged by some clever agent." Miss Dingleby picked up  her napkin and laid it upon her lap with a practiced and decidedly  masculine movement, quite unlike the Miss Dingleby Emilie had known for  so many years. "He was not willing to take such a chance."

Emilie studied the curve of Miss Dingleby's hair, which had been combed  back with pomade and clubbed at the back, in a rather bohemian manner.  Clever, she thought, remembering rather wistfully the heavy golden piles  of her own hair on the bedroom floor, as Miss Dingleby had shorn her  for her disguise. "He trusts you a great deal, my uncle."

"Yes." Miss Dingleby exposed her neat white teeth in a smile. "He does."                       
       
           



       

The tea arrived; Emilie poured out. "And you seem to know a great deal about clandestine meetings."

"I read a great many detective stories. Far more than is good for me, I  daresay. Ah, that's lovely," she said, working her whiskers as she  swallowed the tea. "The swill in York station was all but undrinkable.  But to work. I regret to say I have very little to relate . . ."

"How are my sisters?"

"They are very well indeed. Settling in nicely, I believe." Miss  Dingleby patted her waistcoat pocket. "I have letters from them for  you."

"But they're not allowed to tell me where they are."

"We could not commit such details to paper, of course. The risk would be  dreadful. Still, I think you'll find they're both as well as could be  expected, under the circumstances."

"And we have discovered nothing more about my father's murderers?"

"Inquiries are being made, of course."

Emilie curled her left hand into a fist on her lap. With her right, she  gripped the teacup hard and brought it to her mouth. "I wish," she said,  when the tea was safely down the appropriate pipe, "you'd tell me more.  I have a brain, you know. I might be able to help."

Miss Dingleby shook her head. "If you were to help, you'd expose  yourself, and I doubt you have any idea how ruthless, how cunning these  men can be."

"But why should anybody want to kill my father and Peter?"

"Any number of reasons. No doubt you're aware of the political situation  in Europe." Miss Dingleby selected a piece of cake and applied herself  with enthusiasm.

"Anarchists, you mean?"

"Perhaps."

Emilie's cup fell into its saucer with a clatter that echoed against the  genteel marble shell of the Ashland Spa restaurant like a gunshot. "How  I do wish you would tell me something."

"My dear! What a fuss. Look," Miss Dingleby went on, a little more  kindly, "if you must know, we have heard a few vague clues. A group of  men dissatisfied with the pace of political liberation in Europe. We are  investigating."

"We. You and Olympia, do you mean?"

"No, no. I'm merely a messenger, you understand." Miss Dingleby slipped  the last of her cake into her mouth. "As a trusted retainer of the  family. But I did not come here to speak of His Grace's investigations,  of which there's little to tell. I came to assure myself that you're  well, and to offer my ear and shoulder. I imagine you must find it  difficult, playing a part at all times. And Ashland's household, so I  understand, is not the most convivial. You must be dreadfully lonely."  Miss Dingleby's eyes regarded Emilie steadily.

"Not so much as I feared," she said. "Lord Silverton is lively and  intelligent. Amusing company, really, when he's not sulking. And the  servants are quite nice. Far more familiar than I've been accustomed to,  though perhaps that's only because I'm one of them."

"Not quite, my dear." Miss Dingleby smiled. "And His Grace, the Duke of Ashland? A difficult man, they say."

Emilie had just begun on a rather large piece of cake, which gave her  time to consider her reply. "I don't think so, really. He's only  lonely."

"Lonely?"

"He's had no one to talk to, until now."

"He talks to you?"

Emilie's cheeks began to warm. "We meet in the library sometimes, in the  evening. Chess and that sort of thing. We don't speak much. He's not  talkative. The current news, the weather, a bit of politics. How  Freddie's getting on." Even saying those meager words, Emilie drew the  scent of sherry and leather into her head, saw the glow of the  flickering candles. He did not come every night, of course. She would  sit in her leather chair, reading and waiting, pretending that her heart  didn't quicken at the sound of his heavy tread in the hallway, or that  her limbs didn't lighten as the footsteps grew louder and approached the  library door. She always left it cracked open invitingly, always laid a  few extra coals in the fireplace and lighted another candle or two as  the usual hour drew near.

Hoping, and hoping not.

Most nights, the footsteps went right by the door. Occasionally, Emilie  felt a pause, a gentle hesitation in his pace, as if he were considering  whether to go in. She would shift her seat, turn an unread page, grip  the leather binding to stop the quivering of her fingers.

Usually, the footsteps resumed, and the Duke of Ashland climbed the  stairs to his bedroom. But every so often, perhaps once a week, the  heavy door would creak open and he would fill the empty space, his giant  form outlined against the darkened hallway, his face lit into splendor  by the golden glow of the candles, his bleached hair cropped against his  head, a tiny smile lurking at the corner of his mouth. "Good evening,  Mr. Grimsby," he would say, in that sonorous voice. "Studying late  again, I see."                       
       
           



       

Somehow she would remain calm. She would close her book around her index  finger and say something like, Yes, Your Grace. I find the reading  steadies my mind before bed, and of course the word bed would ricochet  like a rifle about the room and she would hope that the candles weren't  bright enough to reveal her blushing cheeks beneath her whiskers.

Ashland would saunter in, all economical grace, and select a book from  the shelves, or drop down on a chair and make a few lines of  conversation, or offer her a glass of sherry. "Do you play chess, Mr.  Grimsby?" he'd asked, just the night before, and she'd said, Why, yes, I  do, though I'm sadly out of practice, and he'd brought out a chessboard  and played with her for nearly an hour, mostly in silence, but  occasionally offering observations and even once an anecdote about a  chess match during a wretched storm on the steamer out to India.

He had won the game last night; Emilie had been too nervous to play her  pieces well. But she had put up a good defense, she thought proudly. She  had not disgraced herself. And when at last Ashland had risen and  stretched, had put away the chessboard and bid her good night, she had  sat there and remembered all the moves she should have made, and thought  that perhaps she could have taken him, if she'd really tried.

"And how is Freddie getting on?" Miss Dingleby asked, smiling.

Emilie blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"Freddie. Your charge, my dear. How is he getting on?"

"Oh, yes. Very well, in fact. He's terribly undisciplined, but having  watched you with Stefanie all these years, I am quite prepared to deal  with that sort of thing."

"Grateful to be of service." The teacups were empty, the cake in crumbs  on their plates. A faint whistle threaded through the air: the late  afternoon train from York, arriving at the station. Miss Dingleby took  out her watch and a few sealed envelopes from her waistcoat pocket. "I  fear I must go. I believe it turns around in twenty minutes. Here are  your letters." She replaced the watch and motioned for the waiter.