How to Tame Your Duke(38)

Isabelle's house lay near the end of the street, exactly like its  neighbors. The left-hand house of the pair, with a neat number 4 painted  above the door. He paused for an instant at the little gate outside the  steps. He hadn't the faintest idea what to say to her. An awkward  interview, that was inevitable; and entirely unexpected on her part.  What if a man lived there, too? What would he say? He drummed his gloved  fingers on the cold wrought iron. Oddly enough, he felt not a hint of  nervousness. No rattling heartbeat, no tingle of anticipation. Only  curiosity, mingled with impatience: an eagerness to have this interview  over, to snip off this dangling thread in his life.

He opened the gate, crunched up the gravel path, and let fall the knocker on the door.

A woman answered, dressed in a neat black uniform. She gave a start at  the sight of his broad chest before her eyes, and looked up slowly to  find his face. She started again. "Good morning, sir," she squeaked.

"Good morning. I am here to see Her Grace, the Duchess of Ashland."                       
       
           



       

The maid's mouth rounded into an astonished O. "The . . . the duchess?" she said, in the same helpless squeak.

"The Duchess of Ashland. Or perhaps she no longer affects that name. The lady of the house, if you please."

"I . . . I don't . . . I . . ." She swallowed, evidently torn between  Ashland's intimidating appearance and her duty to protect her mistress  from unwanted callers. "May I give her your name, sir?" she said at  last, clutching the edge of the door.

"Certainly. I am her husband, the Duke of Ashland."

"I . . . Oh!"

"May I come in?"

"Sir, I . . ."

Ashland stepped forward through the doorway, causing the maid to fall  back a step or two. "I'll wait in the parlor, if you'll show me  through," he said.

"Yes, sir. Your Grace. Of course." She scuttled ahead, showing him into  the front room, an overstuffed parlor thick with photographs and mantel  cloths and great potted palms. He spared not a glance for the  photographs and went to the window, staring out at the foggy brown  streetscape. A delivery van ambled by, pulled by a dark and elderly  horse whose ears swung listlessly back and forth. Above Ashland's head,  footsteps rattled about, voices muffled through the plaster. Isabelle's  voice?

A light tread came down the staircase. Ashland turned to the doorway.

"Your Grace," said the maid, humbly, as she held back the door.

A woman swept in with a loud rustle of blue and yellow silk. Her hair  was dark, pulled back severely from her face into a cascade of  impossible dark curls; her bustle was so high and proud that Ashland  feared for her balance. She stretched out her hands. "Ashland!"

For an instant, he didn't recognize her. And then, incredulous: "Alice?"

His sister-in-law took another tottering step. "My dear brother. You ought to have warned me."

Because it was the polite thing, he went to her. He took one of her  outstretched hands and kissed the air above it, and he passed her gently  into a chair.

"My dear Alice," he said, standing awkwardly by the mantelpiece. "How are you?"

"I have called for tea. Do you like tea?"

"I haven't much time, I'm afraid. I only came to ask after Isabelle. I  thought she was here, or so my solicitor informed me." He knew the words  sounded stiff and bloodless. He lifted his arm and laid his elbow on  the mantel, in a tiny nook of emptiness amongst the bric-a-brac.

"Oh! Well, I'm sorry for the mistake." Alice looked down at her hands,  which were knotted correctly in her silken lap. "She isn't here."

"Isn't here at the moment, or doesn't live here?"

"Doesn't live here." She said it in a whisper.

Ashland allowed a little silence to fall. "I don't quite understand. Her  quarterly allowance arrives here, according to my solicitor. One  thousand pounds a year. A rather handsome sum. I hope this is not some  unfortunate mistake." He picked up one of the objects, a miniature  golden-haired shepherdess, and turned it about his palm. "She is still  alive, isn't she, Alice?"

"Oh yes! Oh, of course. I . . . I had a letter from her just last week. I . . ."

A knock sounded on the door, and the maid came in with a groaning tray  of tea things: pot and cups and cream, cakes and buns without number.  She set it down on the round table next to the sofa, made a few  adjustments, and straightened. "Will that be all, ma'am?"

"Yes, Polly. Thank you."

The door closed behind the maid, and Alice leaned eagerly forward over the tea tray. "Cream and sugar, Your Grace?"

He didn't give a damn. "Yes."

She bustled about with the tea, hair gleaming in the lamplight. Ashland  watched her without moving, the quick nervous flutterings of her hand,  the tea spilled over the edge of the cup (oh dear me! how clumsy), the  slice of cake laid carefully on his plate. "There you are, Your Grace.  Isn't it just the thing on such a frightful January morning?"

"Yes." He laid the cup and saucer on the mantel and lifted the  paper-thin porcelain to his lips. "Tell me about Isabelle. Is she well?"

"Oh yes. Very well indeed."

"I presume you forward her the money each quarter, as it arrives?" He  tilted his head to indicate the well-stocked room about him. "All of  it?"

Her mouth was buried behind her teacup. "Well . . . that is, not all of it."

"Most of it?"

"Well, that is to say . . ."

"Alice," he said, setting his cup precisely in his saucer, "suppose you  tell me exactly where the money goes each month, and why."                       
       
           



       

"Oh dear." She put her own cup and saucer on the table and wrung her hands together. "I don't know if Isabelle would want . . ."

"I don't give a damn, Alice, if you'll pardon the expression. What I  want to know is this: Where exactly is my wife, and what exactly are you  doing with her allowance?"

Alice shot to her feet. "Oh, Your Grace. Please don't be angry. I was  only . . . Isabelle asked me to, you see, because she couldn't care for  the girl herself, not with . . . with her present company . . ."

"Girl," Ashland said. His limbs went numb. "What girl?"

"Her daughter, Your Grace."

A furious cheeping started up from some cluttered corner of the room.  Alice sprang to her feet. "Oh, the silly bird. He sees the tea things,  of course. He never could resist a lemon tart." She picked up a plate  and dashed to the birdcage.

Ashland watched her feed the bird, heard the chattering of female and  parakeet distantly through his humming ears. A liquor tray sat at the  far end of the room. He placed his cup and saucer on the tea table and  strode toward it. The decanters were brimming, each with an expensive  engraved label slung about the neck. He selected the brandy.

"I see." He tossed back his glass in a gulp-half full only; he had that  much discipline-and set it down on the tray with a crystalline clink.  The brandy burned its way comfortably to his stomach. "This daughter.  Where is she now?"

"Why, upstairs with her governess, of course. I hired a French governess  for her. Only the best." Alice beamed proudly. "She'll go off to Lady  Margaret's next year."

"How old is she?"

"Rising thirteen, Your Grace, and a fine handsome girl she is."

Rising thirteen. "May I see her?"

"I . . ." Alice tugged at the lace on her sleeve. Her brow had  compressed into a multitude of worried lines beneath her razor-parted  hair. "I suppose there's no harm." She went to the tea table and rang a  small bell.

Ashland could not say another word. He turned away when the maid came,  and looked out the window again at the deserted street, closing his ears  to the whispered conversation behind him. It was nearly noon, but the  air outside hung dark and murky as twilight. A few piles of tenacious  slush clung to the bases of the streetlamps. A sudden ache invaded his  breast: for clean, windswept Yorkshire, for one of Freddie's jokes, for  Grimsby's wry ripostes. For Emily's gentle voice, reading a book. Her  quick smile, the velvet touch of her skin against his lips.

Home.

The door creaked. "Your Grace?"

Ashland turned. A dark-haired girl stood in the doorway, a tall girl,  almost as tall as Alice, who stood behind her charge with ring-strewn  hands upon those thin adolescent shoulders. He strained to see the  girl's face, but she stood just in the shadow of the lamp burning  nearby.

"Good morning," he said. "I am the Duke of Ashland. What is your name?"