Chapter One: Gossip
Miss Harmony Barrett gazed longingly at the door.
She knew the precise location of Lord Darlington’s library, for she’d already stolen there several times to explore his impressive collection of books. She was certain he would not be angry if he caught her at it, but she still snuck in and out like a thief. Perhaps it was because the Darlingtons’ library felt so private. It felt like a hideaway, a shelter.
She wished she could hide away there right now.
Instead she was stuck with her silly set of young unmarried women, listening to an endless, cloying dissection of each and every gentleman guest at Danbury House. The Earl of So-and-So had the most handsome blond curls, and Lord Whomever was the most elegant dancer, didn’t everyone believe so? And had everyone heard that Sir Horrid Rake and Lady Poor Choices had stolen off behind the carriage house yesterday to be alone? That was the girls’ cue to dissolve en masse into giddy giggles. Oh, and didn’t the Honorable Mr. Barrett have the most beautiful eyes in the world?
Harmony cringed. Mr. Barrett was her scoundrel brother and he was to marry Lady Meredith Airleigh at the holidays. This did not prevent him from spending his summer fraternizing with all the ladies at the house party.
“Mr. Barrett is a cad,” Harmony said, “if you must know.”
“Oh, hush.” Lady Mirabel Godwin tapped Harmony’s head with her white lace fan. “Of course you’d think so, but I would forgive him anything for those eyes.”
“He is going to be married,” Harmony said stubbornly. “His eyes are betrothed to another.” She didn’t understand the girls’ obsession with her brother’s appearance. His eyes were a very plain shade of blue like hers, and his hair the same white-blond, and she was certainly not fawned over by any of the gentlemen.
Lady Mirabel sniffed and turned away from Harmony, edging her out of the group. “Do you know what I heard? His Grace the Duke of Courtland has finally arrived to the party, along with his mother and her companion. Perhaps we’ll see them at dinner, although I am not sure I shall be brave enough to speak to such a lofty person. If I am seated beside him I might faint into my soup.”
The idea of this sent the group off into more titters and swoons. A few older women came to join them now that His Grace was the topic. Harmony half-listened to their gossip about his wealth, his opulent estates, his appealing features. Another fine specimen for her contemporaries to prattle on about.
“Why do you suppose he has not married?” asked Miss Juliette Pettyfur.
“There are reasons.” Mrs. Castleton’s voice held a note of distaste. “I wouldn’t set your cap for that one.”
“All dukes must marry at some point,” Miss Viola Burress said, but then another woman said something about “uncomfortable habits,” and the older ladies shushed her and urged the younger women outdoors into the sunshine to take their tea.
It was there, with their heads bowed together, that the younger set of ladies whispered about what his “uncomfortable habits” might be.
“Well, if he is thirty years old and not married, that means he is a rake,” said Mirabel.
“It does not mean that at all,” Juliette retorted.
Lady Sybil looked around at the other girls with an expression of gravity. “I probably should not say this, but Papa has warned me against him.”
“There, you see,” said Mirabel. “He is a rake.”
“I believe he must be something worse than a rake.” Viola flushed. “Did you see the older ladies’ expressions when his name was brought up?”
Harmony wondered what could possibly be worse than a rake. From the silent, uneasy pall that fell over the group, she supposed she wasn’t the only one.
“Mrs. Castleton said there are reasons he hasn’t married. What could they possibly be?” Mirabel whispered.
“I do not know,” said Sybil, “but my brother spoke something of him to papa when he was considering the duke for my hand. Whatever he said, papa refused to repeat it to mama.”
This elicited horrified gasps from the entire company.
“Perhaps he has killed someone!” said one of the more fanciful girls. “A duke could get away with it.”
“I bet he has the most cold and sinister eyes,” another girl said.
“I’m frightened,” whimpered another. “Why would they invite him here among civilized people?”
“If he killed someone, why would the Darlingtons invite him into their home?” Mirabel asked. “A duke cannot run about killing people on a whim. Dukes are powerful, but not that powerful.”
“Yes,” agreed Juliette. “How silly to leap from ‘uncomfortable habits’ to ‘murderer.’ As for his cold and sinister eyes, I thought he was considered handsome.”
“I have seen him in town,” said Sybil. “He is uncommonly tall, with dark hair and attractive features. He is handsome. Dangerously so.” She raised a brow for emphasis.
Harmony was not sure how one could be dangerously handsome. Perhaps women fainted just from looking at him.
“He probably keeps dozens of mistresses,” Viola said.
“Maybe he cannot keep even one, because he is so awful to them,” said the fanciful girl. “Maybe he draws them in with his attractive features and then trods upon their hearts.”
“Or beats them,” suggested another. “Or kills them.”
Harmony sighed as the young women joined hands, promising to protect one another from the terrifying menace of his wiles.
“Perhaps it is only that he drinks too much at dinner,” Harmony drawled. “Or eats too much, and belches loudly and repeatedly. That would be an uncomfortable habit indeed.”
As usual, all the girls looked at her as though she were mad
. Which she nearly was, after days of listening to them natter on about the stupidest subjects. She stared back at them until they all looked down at their plates.
“Well,” Sybil declared after a beat. “All I know is that I wouldn’t take him for a husband even if papa would let me, which he won’t. In fact, I am determined not to speak to him if we are introduced.”
One of the younger girls gasped. “Will you give the Duke of Courtland the cut direct? I should like to see you try it.”
The girls all began to giggle again, proclaiming they would also be bold enough to cut the duke, and wouldn’t it leave him red in the face?
Harmony doubted he would notice. If the duke was a rake and a bounder with armfuls of mistresses, he was unlikely to crumble at the disdain of a few young ladies. Thank goodness Harmony was not concerned with such nonsense. She was only here at this house party because her brother Stephen had ingratiated his way into an invitation. “It’s for you,” he had said. “For you to make a match. Any match. You aren’t getting any younger, and father and I shall not support you forever.” His pressure didn’t help matters. When this cursed party was at an end, perhaps they would resign themselves to her inevitable spinsterhood and allow her to study and bide alone to her heart’s content.
“Harmony?” Sybil’s strident voice interrupted her thoughts. “Would you?”
“Would I what?”
The ladies sighed and exchanged glances.
“Of course she would,” Sybil said under her breath. “Someone like her would not think twice about it.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” Harmony said with a pricked temper. “And I’m not sure I’ll answer since you used that mocking tone.”
“I am only teasing you.” She tapped Harmony’s arm with her fan. Harmony thought she would break the fan over top of Sybil’s head next time she was tapped, and enjoy doing so.
“Harmony!” Sybil said, breaking into her thoughts again. “I’m speaking of His Grace. Would you dance with the Duke of Courtland if he asked?”
“Tonight?”
Sybil threw up her hands in irritation. “Whenever. Yes. Tonight.”
“He won’t ask, so it’s rather a pointless question.”
Sybil looked at the others. “I told you. Yes, she would.”
“You are all unkind,” Harmony said. “Perhaps he is a fine gentleman. You haven’t even met him, only shared gossip which is probably untrue.”
“How earnest you are,” Mirabel sneered, looking around at the others. “She has shamed us, hasn’t she? Well, then, we shall leave his prodigious charms to you.” All the young ladies found that idea hilarious.
“I have had enough fresh air.” Harmony took to her feet, to the insincere protests and apologies of her friends. Of course they would want her to stay; she made such a pleasant target for their barbs. “The sun is too strong today. Have a fine afternoon.”
She ignored their whispers as she left the garden and made her way to the house. The gentlemen were out hunting and the older ladies still at tea. It was the perfect time for a stolen couple of hours in Lord Darlington’s library. She shed her bonnet in her room, then hurried down the main hallway to a staircase with a great carved banister that led to the main floor. With no footmen in sight, Harmony let herself into the library and closed the doors behind her. The room was tucked away in a corner of the manor, an intimate space with an ornate ceiling and tall, laden shelves. There were several chairs and a deep, tufted sofa near the fireplace, with a massive desk between the two windows, facing out into the room.
How Harmony would love a desk like that. After she scanned the shelves and selected a couple of titles, she crossed to the mahogany monstrosity, running her fingers over the carved edges. Why, the desktop was large enough to be a bed. She imagined lying across the top under a blanket, with a pillow cradling her head. Whenever she finished a book and wanted another, she would be right there in the library to fetch one. Bliss!
She moved to the chair, which was nearly as tall as she. With some effort she drew it back and sat down on its weathered seat. So this was how it felt to be lord of the manor. She planted her elbows on the armrests and snuggled back into the chair. If only she were lord of her own estate. Then she might do as she pleased without her brother telling her no, or that it wasn’t ladylike, or she must ask her father or some other nonsense.
Halfway through a vivid fantasy about telling her brother off, she heard a creak and the sound of the library doors swinging open. She slid from the chair into the recessed underside of the desk. Was it only a servant come to dust and organize the books? Was it Lord Darlington, home early from the hunt? Why had she hidden? Now she would have to spring out and shock the person, or risk being found crouched down in this hideyhole, skirts tangled around her legs. Perhaps she would just be very still and hope she wasn’t found. The person would have to leave eventually.
She made her ample figure as small as she could and inched a little farther against the back of the desk’s enclosure, gripping her books in her lap. Quiet. Quiet as a mouse.
*** *** ***
Court prowled the library shelves, relieved to be sprung from the confines of the ducal carriage, luxurious though it might be. It had taken an entire week to travel north from London to Harrogate, a week during which his mother and her companion’s chatter never ceased. Court had nearly recovered in the lazy baths of the spa town when he had to travel again with the elderly ladies to this house party in Sedgefield. Then there would be the lengthy journey back to London in a few weeks’ time.
He couldn’t think of that now. He would put it out of his mind and enjoy the comforts of the Darlingtons’ home. “Only the quality,” his mother had crowed on the journey. “Such elegant affairs, always. There will be grand dinners and fine conversation, and music and dancing every night for the young people. With such bright company, how could a hostess resist? Perhaps we shall even watch affection blossom between some lucky lady and gentleman.”
Mrs. Lyndon had grinned. “Oh, yes, madam. A country match and a winter wedding back in town.”
Both old women had then looked pointedly at Court.
God confound him. Until a few weeks ago the matter of his marriage had been settled, the proper alliance decided upon when he was a young boy. Ah, Gwen, with her sleek dark hair, her wide, serene eyes. They had grown up on neighboring estates in Hertfordshire, and from their earliest years had understood their intertwined destinies. While other boys teased and chased her skirts, Court treated her with the tender deference due a future wife. When he’d gone to London as a young man, he’d been discreet in his wilder adventures lest he shame her or cause her discomfort. Court, his parents, and everyone in society had assumed she would eventually become the mother of the Courtland heirs.
Until her father, Lord Tremayne, announced her betrothal to the Earl of Wembley, a man lesser to Court in every way. A love match, Tremayne explained in an attempt to preserve the long-standing bonds between the families.
But there was more to it than that. Gwen had looked at him differently once the gossip started to surface, sordid tales and half-truths exaggerating his use of spanking parlors and brothels. Oh, Court was bad, but he wasn’t that bad. Her worshipful gazes had become something more like fear. Didn’t she understand he never would have exposed her to that side of him? On pure rumor—so much of it untrue—his Gwendolyn, the future Duchess of Courtland, had passed on his great wealth and attributes to marry a silly country earl.
Court would never admit to nursing a broken heart, but perhaps he was.
His mother didn’t care about his hurt pride, his bruised feelings. She wanted him to choose a different duchess, the sooner the better, and produce a child. This foray north was a matchmaking caper, the house party a convenient aggregation of acceptable female blood. His mother ranted and railed on the topic of Gwen and assured him he could do ten times better if he applied himself. The problem was, after so many years, Court fou
nd it difficult to imagine marrying anyone else.
He put these maudlin thoughts aside to enjoy the ambiance of Darlington’s library. It smelled of leather and faintly of cigar smoke, and contained a quantity of interesting volumes. Occasionally he took down a book and leafed through it, looking for some history or novel with which to pass the afternoon, for he was not a man at ease in leisure and he was far from the places he felt at home. His clubs, his political offices, his house in St. James Square. His country estate was off limits, now that Gwen had set up house with her new husband just a few miles from what ought to have been her home at Courtland Manor.
Blast.
Tomorrow he could join the gentlemen at fishing and hunting, tromp through fields, get dirty and vulgar and shoot a grouse or two. He was good at such sport like any member of his set, though he was generally disinterested in killing things. Something about handing the carcasses over to the servants to be duly prepared and presented at dinner always smacked of wilting affluence to him. He would much rather shoot and prepare his own game over his own fire and eat it standing out in the woods like a savage.
Perhaps that was his problem. There was a savage inside him, trussed up in a waistcoat, coat, and starched neckcloth, gasping for air. Add a couple of elderly companions, a society house party, giggling young ladies, and the savage was smothered completely.
Court gave up on the bookshelves and moved to one of the windows to survey his host’s property. Lovely garden, lake, some outbuildings, and a glass house in the distance. It was very much like Wembley’s estate. Grand but livable. Large, but not so large that one felt dwarfed. In other words, nothing at all like his houses. He crossed to Darlington’s desk, a handsome wooden structure set between the two windows, and sprawled back in the chair. He slung one booted foot over the other and laced his hands behind his head. Ah, but it felt damn good to stretch his legs after so many hours in the coach’s cramped interior—
But then his foot contacted some soft, resistant surface that emitted a feminine squeak.