Duchesses in Disguise Read online

  Her story was plausible. Italy was a collection of courts, states, duchies, and shifting alliances—enough to provide employment for an army of Englishmen who preferred good wine and ample sunshine with their diplomatic intrigue and exotic mistresses.

  “My excuse?”

  “For abandoning the shores of Merry Olde England? You are not a Captain Sir Greyville, or a Colonel Sir Greyville, so you chose to turn your back on your homeland and go larking about in the tropics.”

  “I wanted to explore the world beyond Kent and Mayfair, of which there is more than most English boys can dream.”

  Not the whole truth—he’d wanted to get free of his father’s expectations and get on with the thankless business of being an earl’s spare.

  “You don’t think English girls dream, Sir Greyville?”

  Contentious, indeed, though she wasn’t strictly Italian. “It’s adequately documented that female children of many nationalities dream, but in the normal course, one expects they dream of a home of their own, some babies, a good tisane for a megrim, or a safe lying in. I haven’t gathered data on the subject of an English girl’s dreams, so I ought not to speculate.”

  “Perhaps you have noted in your vast observations that the normal course is typically the course that benefits men.”

  “Benefits men? If it does, that’s because to the male falls the duty of providing and protecting,” Grey countered. “Without his good efforts, which society justifiably supports, the female, given her weaker physical attributes and burdened by the duty to produce young, would soon find herself at the mercy of predators and unkind elements.”

  Let her argue with that from the comfort of his saddle.

  “If the blighted male could keep his breeches buttoned, the burden of producing young would not become one of the most regular threats to the lady’s life. Moreover, the reckless incompetence of a male coachman must be considered when assigning responsibility for my current predicament. Then too, I have yet to see women take up arms for twenty years and leave a continent in ruins.”

  Her arguments were not without a scintilla of logic, but that was the trouble with amateurs playing at science. They could concoct fancies from anecdotes, casual reasoning, and passionate convictions that bore only a passing relation to logical discourse.

  The gates of Rose Heath manor house came into view, and because Stratton ran a proper establishment, the gatehouse was occupied, and a welcome light shone from its windows. As the horses descended the final declivity, a signal light also appeared on the roof of the gatehouse.

  “Well?” the lady demanded. “Do you admit that ordering the universe to suit the whims of men rests not on a scientific foundation but a selfish one?”

  “Mrs. Pomponio, a gentleman does not argue with a lady.”

  “He who refuses to fight cannot lose the battle, though he can lose the war.” In perfect Latin. “Who said that?”

  “I did, and I can say it in six other languages.”

  She had Grey by two languages, and that included the native dialect he’d picked up in the jungle.

  He would not ask her how many of her instructors had been men. “The manor house has been alerted to our arrival. You’ll have a hot bath, sustenance, and a warm bed within the hour.”

  The household would not know to heat enough water for six baths, so the gentlemen—coach-wrecking, rutting, war-mongering incompetents though they might be—would have to wait for their comforts until the ladies had been accommodated.

  “I am not normally so combative,” Mrs. Pomponio said. “I apologize for my lack of graciousness. You are being most gallant.”

  “Gallant? That’s doing it a bit brown, don’t you think? It wasn’t my decision to rescue you, but rather our mutual host’s, and we haven’t gone so much as ten yards out of our way to bring you to safety.”

  Though Stratton and his lady had turned off at some point. Stirling was bringing up the rear with his sodden damsel, who looked none too pleased to be in the company of a notorious London rakehell.

  Mrs. Pomponio shifted, tucking her scarf more securely about Grey’s neck. This inflicted another whiff of jasmine on him, as well as the novel experience of being fussed.

  “I would rather you were full of manly drivel and flirtation, Sir Greyville. If you continue being so blunt and honest, I might begin to like you.”

  “Can’t have that, can we?” For then Grey might find himself liking her, with her odd notions, lively mind, imperious speech, and sweet scents.

  “I am a Continental widow of comfortable means, Sir Greyville. For the most part, I can have whoever and whatever I please. Consider yourself warned.” Mrs. Pomponio settled into his arms and closed her eyes, as if napping the last few hundred yards was what she pleased at that moment, and bedamned to sleet, logic, cold, and Grey himself.

  Grey let her have the last word, despite all temptation to the contrary.

  He hadn’t held a woman in years, and her last assertion—that a Continental widow of means was free to dally at will—was true enough, provided the parties were discreet. Fortunately, his own inclination to dally—his potential, possible, hypothetical inclination to dally after three endless years of abstinence—would be entirely subsumed by the burning need to get his notes into publishable form.

  Thank the everlasting powers for science, yet again.

  * * *

  To be held in a masculine embrace that sought nothing other than to provide security was lovely.

  Also bothersome.

  Francesca resented Sir Greyville’s gallantry even as she admitted she was starved for proof that homo gentlemanliness was not an extinct species. The men who fared best at the ducal court in San Mercato were handsome, flattering, utterly selfish, and as randy as boar hogs in spring. Her father had fit right in, as had her husband.

  Francesca had no reason to believe Englishmen were any different, and yet, Sir Greyville’s hands hadn’t once wandered where they ought not, his conversation had borne no sly innuendos, and his smiles…

  He hadn’t smiled. Not once. How dare he be so genuine?

  Very likely he’d thought Francesca’s warning about dallying where she pleased a sophisticated jest. In fact, she hadn’t had the nerve to dally anywhere, not with half the court plotting her demise and the other half trying to propose to her.

  Sir Greyville smelled good, of fine wool, cedar soap, leather. Masculine, English scents that put Francesca in mind of girlhood summers in Dorset.

  Worse, Sir Greyville Trenton felt good. He was solid and warm, a bulwark of masculine confidence and competence. In bed, he’d know what he was about—provided he didn’t lapse into biology lectures between rounds of frolic.

  As the horse slogged up the drive, the manor house loomed larger and larger. This was not a quaint country cottage, but rather, a substantial and well-maintained dwelling.

  A fountain in the middle of the circular drive boasted a sculpture of three swans that would have been a convincing addition to the Palazzo Ducale in Venice. Numerous windows marched along the building’s front.

  Wealth—old, understated wealth—stood before Francesca, and she respected that. A man who commanded resources of this magnitude could have ridden past a toppled coach without a backward glance.

  She shivered, despite Sir Greyville’s sheltering presence at her back.

  “Almost there,” he said. “You will be cosseted and pampered within an inch of your reason. Only by virtue of unrelenting self-discipline do I make any progress with my work at all.”

  “Couldn’t you be self-disciplined later?” Francesca asked. “You’ve endured privations without number, for years. A little cosseting might put you to rights.”

  “I assure you, madam, I am as much to rights as I care to be put. Science is a competitive undertaking, and findings that remain unpublished do nothing to fund future expeditions. Time waits for no man, particularly not the man of science.”

  Francesca was growing to hate the word science.
r />   “Well, I hope a hot bath waits for this woman of limited patience and frozen toes. I could eat a banquet about now as well, provided the menu included something other than boiled beef, boiled cabbage, and brown bread. If the English could devise a way to boil bread, they’d probably do that as well.”

  The horse came to a halt beside the mounting block without any apparent guidance from his owner.

  “I believe you describe the dumpling, more or less. Feel free to argue with me, however, for the dumpling has no leavening and you seem to enjoy airing your opinions. Lean forward, that I might dismount.”

  Francesca complied, though she was impressed that Sir Greyville knew how to make dumplings, and would admit as much.

  He got off the horse and immediately the cold was worse. The wind cut like so many blades of stiff grass, the sleet came down with more force. Grooms had come out to take the horses, and Francesca had to consciously review the process for getting out of the saddle.

  Sir Greyville put his hands at her waist. Francesca braced her hands against his shoulders and prepared for a graceful descent to terra firma.

  Her boots hit the ground, pain shot up both legs, and the terra refused to hold firma. She slipped, slid, sloshed, and would have gone down into the mud except for Sir Greyville’s steadying hold.

  “It’s the damned cold,” he said. “It steals into the limbs like a fever, but worse. I spent three years longing for the English countryside. I must have been demented to miss this place.”

  He scooped Francesca up against his chest and strode toward the house. A footman scampered beside them, an enormous umbrella doing nothing to hold the elements at bay.

  “I am capable of walking,” Francesca said, though her dratted teeth chattered.

  “I am not capable of providing a decorous escort when the sooner we’re out of this blighted weather, the less likely we’ll be to die from exposure. If your extremities are numb, you are already at risk of harm.”

  He could lecture while he hauled her about, though Francesca stifled further protest when being hauled about was such a lovely experience. Whatever else might be true about men of science, their expeditions made them fit and surefooted.

  When Sir Greyville got to the front door, Francesca expected him to set her down, but he simply kept moving past the liveried footman, pausing only long enough for the aging butler to whisk off his hat.

  Francesca had a vague impression of soaring ceilings, acres of oak paneling, and sparkling pier glasses before Sir Greyville carried her into what looked like a small library.

  He deposited her on a sofa before a roaring fire, then tossed two bricks of peat on the flames.

  “This is the estate office, and the fire is always kept blazing in here at my request. My notes are arrayed about. Don’t touch them. I have a system. Disturb it at your mortal peril.”

  “You rescue me from the elements only to threaten me with your wrath?” The heat was heavenly, the scent of peat delightful.

  “You’re a quick study.” He went down on one knee and began fussing with the laces of Francesca’s boot. “I like that in a woman. So many ladies feign a lack of wits, thinking it attractive. It’s not. Nothing could be more uninteresting to the typical Englishman than dull-wittedness in a lady.”

  “You’ve courted many Englishmen that you’ve gathered data regarding their preferences?”

  Sir Greyville paused between boots. “Have you courted many Englishmen?”

  The scarf lay loosely about his shoulders, and Francesca got her first good look at him. His hair would probably be auburn when dry, possibly Titian. His nose belonged on an emperor, and the rest of his features lived up to that nose. Strong, masculine, by no means pretty, but hopelessly attractive.

  He was a man in his prime, his complexion darker than most Englishmen’s, and he’d age wonderfully.

  Unless one of those tropical fevers carried him off prematurely, or some woman delivered him a mortal blow he’d never see coming.

  “What are you doing with my boots, sir?”

  “Getting them off of you. I assume your fingers are stiff with cold, and the last thing Stratton needs is a sick woman malingering under his roof or passing along an ague to his small daughter. Do you drink tea, coffee, or chocolate? Perhaps you’d rather a toddy or a medicinal glass of brandy?”

  “I am perfectly capable of removing my own footwear.” Francesca ran her fingers through his hair, flicking the dampness from it. “Your gallantry is appreciated, but unnecessary. Perhaps you’d best get your own boots off, lest the colonel have a sick Englishman under his roof, hmm?”

  Sir Greyville’s hair was marvelously soft. For a moment, they remained in a tableau, with Francesca engaging in some retaliatory cosseting—he’d presumed to unlace her boots—and Sir Greyville oddly docile on his knees before her, his lashes lowered.

  He rose in one motion. “I’ll send a maid to you. Don’t touch my notes.”

  Francesca let him have the last word.

  Why on earth would she bother touching his notes when touching him was so much more interesting?

  Chapter Two

  * * *

  Because Grey had misrepresented his publication schedule as pressing to both Stratton and Stirling, he was not expected to take meals with the rest of the household. He was permitted as eccentric a routine as he pleased, which was very eccentric indeed.

  And yet, nothing much was getting accomplished. A lassitude had afflicted Grey ever since arriving here at Rose Heath, and while his mind toyed with ideas—and worries—his work did not progress.

  That relative inactivity might explain why he’d taken such notice of Mrs. Pomponio’s boots when he’d unlaced them for her two hours ago. Her footwear was beautiful, if impractical. Soft, tooled leather with a ridiculous number of hooks and buttons. Restoring those boots would cost some servant a significant effort.

  “You there,” Grey said to a maid passing by as he emerged from his bedchamber. “If you’d please fetch a substantial tray to the estate office, I’ll take my evening meal while I work.”

  The maid looked like she wanted to say something, or ask him something, but she merely bobbed a curtsey and scurried off. The help at Rose Heath manor was blessedly well trained, and thus Grey had enjoyed a hot bath despite the presence of the stranded ladies.

  He’d enjoyed carrying Mrs. Pomponio inside from the drive too, male brute that he was. He’d claimed to her that his show of strength had been for pragmatic reasons, but in fact, he’d simply wanted to be a gentleman—a useful, helpful creature worthy of a lady’s notice.

  Elsewhere in the house, Stratton was probably presiding over a delightful meal with the three lady guests and the flirtatious Stirling. The witticisms would flow along with the wine, and the company would be as merry as it was tedious.

  “Everything bores me of late,” he muttered, sailing into the estate office. The heat hit him with a welcome impact, as did the sight of his notes, all exactly where he’d left them.

  Mrs. Pomponio was where he’d left her too, though she was wrapped in a man’s night robe and a small hot air balloon’s worth of silk nightgown. She looked quintessentially English, with golden hair cascading over her shoulder in a thick plait and the elegant height of the Saxon aristocrat.

  At present, that height was curled on the sofa before the fire, and the lady was softly snoring. Completing this picture of feminine contentment were thick wool stockings on her feet—men’s stockings, if Grey weren’t mistaken.

  “Madam.”

  Her breathing continued in the slow, relaxed rhythm of restful sleep.

  She was a widow, and she’d had a trying day. Grey decided to leave her to her slumbers, rather than rouse her. Not strictly proper, but then, neither was ending up in a muddy ditch at the mercy of the elements.

  He sat at the desk and resumed transcribing where he’d left off. If he contemplated the magnitude of his task, he’d never complete it. The sheer variety of life in the Amazon jungle was sta
ggering, as was the quantity of rain, the mass of insects, and the array of potentially fatal mistakes a biologist might make.

  How long he sat scribbling away, he did not know, but he eventually became aware of Mrs. Pomponio staring at him.

  “Madam is awake.”

  “My eyes are open,” she said. “Not quite the same thing. What time is it?”

  “Going on nine.”

  She rose and stretched with her back to Grey, and damned if he didn’t find her unselfconscious maneuver attractive. Cats stretched with that thorough, unapologetic sensuality. She put him in mind not of the nimble little ocelot, but of the sleek jaguar—the cat that kills with one leap, according to the guides.

  “I’m sorry I fell asleep in your sanctum sanctorum,” she said, rustling over to the desk, “but for the first time in ages, I’m not cold. You have an interesting collection of notes.”

  Grey rose, torn between outrage that she’d trespass on his notes and the temptation to invite her to stay warm as long as she pleased.

  “I asked you not to disturb my documentation. Was my request in any way unclear?”

  She patted his cravat. “You didn’t ask. You ordered me not to touch your notes. More than once. A man giving me orders is novel enough in my life that I remark such occasions. Because you have all these papers arranged in piles by date, I didn’t need to touch them to read those pages plainly on display. Have you considered arranging them by topic instead of date? I assume that’s what the symbols in the right-hand corner are for.”

  “They are.”

  She’d bathed, and the scent of dear old English lavender soap clung to her person along with a hint of that damnable jasmine. The nerve of the woman, smelling so luscious.

  Her eyes were gray—he’d wondered—and without boots she was a good six inches shorter than he. In bed, the fit would be exquisite.

  Grey was wondering if she might caress his hair again—because he was daft, of course—when a knock sounded on the door.