When the Duke Returns(37)

Besides, Honeydew was discovering he had alarmingly affectionate feelings toward the young duke who worked all day and half the night, and who was paying everyone, honest and true. The whole countryside was talking about it. A year ago he couldn’t find a ripe melon without ready money, but now offers were flowing from all sides.

“This Mr. Purfew who claims to have done great service for the late duke,” the duke said. “Do you have any idea who that might be, Honeydew?”

Honeydew pursed his lips. “It doesn’t ring a bell. There was a Pursloe—”

The duke turned to an enormous ledger that lay open to his right. “I’ve already noted a payment to Pursloe, made yesterday, for four wigs purchased by my father ten years ago, payment refused on the grounds that they were too old-fashioned.”

Honeydew judged it best to be silent.

But the duke smiled faintly. “I suspect my father was buried in one of those old-fashioned wigs?”

“I believe, sir, that there should be a letter thereabouts from a London wigmaker named Mr. Westby, who made the burial wig. It was His Grace’s favorite.”

The smile fell from the duke’s face and he looked to his ledger with a sigh. “I haven’t found Westby’s letter, Honeydew. But I attempted to take a nap at one point and discovered a great trove of letters propping up the leg of the sofa. When you get a moment, could you have the footmen remove that sofa? It’s beyond repair.”

Honeydew saw that the velvet, claw-footed sofa had lurched to the ground, minus a leg. Moreover a sprinkle of straw haloed the floor around it, showing that its innards were openly disintegrating. He felt a rush of embarrassment. “I am sorry that—your father wouldn’t—”

The duke held up his hand. “There’s no need,” he said wearily. “Truly. I am learning the depths of my father’s stubbornness letter by letter and I can only admire you for staying in your post. I have instructed Kinnaird to double your wages; consider it hardship pay.”

Honeydew drew himself upright. “I thank you, Your Grace.” Happy visions of retirement and a small cottage danced before his eyes. Then he returned to the subject at hand. It seemed to him quite odd that the duke and duchess were married, and yet not married. Not to mention sleeping, quite obviously, in different quarters.

What was needed was to create some good old-fashioned propinquity.

“Her Grace has requested supper to be served in the Dower House,” he said. “I shall set a cover for you.”

The duke nodded. But then, as Honeydew was leaving, he looked up from his desk and said, “Don’t forget to ask Godfrey to join us.”

Godfrey? A thirteen-year-old joining the intimate dinner between a barely married man and wife? Honeydew could not approve.

“I shall ascertain whether the young master is free to join you,” he said, vowing to make quite certain that Godfrey was occupied.

“Of course, I’m free,” piped up a voice from the other side of the room.

“Lord Godfrey!”

The boy’s brown curls popped up from the far side of yet another faded sofa. “I haven’t even met the duchess.”

“I didn’t know you were still there,” the duke said, smiling at his brother. “One hour more and I’m dragging you out on the roads for a run, Godfrey.”

Defeated, Honeydew bowed and departed.





Chapter Fifteen




The Dower House

February 29, 1784

Isidore prepared her cottage with great care. A small army of housemaids cleaned it from floor to rafters. Then she sent two of the most capable-looking ones searching all over Revels House for bits of furniture.

By the end of the afternoon, she had her little dollhouse made up a trifle more comfortably. Candles shone all over the room. Upholstered chairs replaced the unpadded armchairs favored by the late dowager duchess. There was a vase of snowdrops that Isidore gathered in the garden, and the bed (large enough for two) was made up with snowy white linens and piled with pillows.

It was still a doll’s house, but polished to a high gleam and smelling deliciously of French lilacs (thanks to some very expensive parfum), it spoke of creature comforts.

And seduction.

The footmen arrived with a small dining room table and Isidore had them move it twice before she decided the best place for it was in the corner of the sitting room, where she and Simeon would eat in a mysterious, slightly shadowed intimacy.

She sent a suggested menu to Honeydew, including hot, spiced wine that she could prepare herself at fireside.

She could just picture it: the duke with his broad shoulders, his jacket thrown open and his hair tumbling to his shoulders. She would play the immaculate, utterly delicious wife. If what he wanted was English womanhood in all its delicate docility, she could do that.