My Own True Duchess Read online

  Which apparently decided the matter for her. Alas, not so with the Parisian authorities.

  “Letting girls fresh from the schoolroom have at bachelors such as myself should be a crime. Dora Louise is taking risks she can’t fathom.”

  A shadow passed across Mrs. Haviland’s eyes. She was blue-eyed and had doubtless chosen the color of her dress to emphasize that feature. More than the color, Jonathan noticed the intelligence of her gaze and a banked longing. She was eyeing the sweets on the plate, though cheese, ham, and spiced pears had yet to be consumed.

  “I don’t fancy chocolates,” Jonathan said. “The French are wild for them, but I’ve never acquired the taste.” Two small chocolates sat on the tray, satiny brown in the candlelight. “I’ll leave you to finish this meal in private. I’m off to find Dora Louise.”

  Mrs. Haviland held one of the chocolates beneath her nose. “Why?”

  “Because if I show her some favor, then the other fellows will take notice of her, and her desperation might drop from view long enough for some dashing swain to turn her head.”

  “A sound strategy.” Mrs. Haviland set down the chocolate. “A pleasure meeting you, Mr. Tresham. Best of luck with the rest of the Season.”

  She offered him a smile, not a governess-smile or a widow-smile, but a friendly smile that suggested a timely rescue could be viewed as a lark rather than a brush with disaster.

  Jonathan’s thespian skills weren’t equal to perpetuating such a miscarriage of truth. Dora Louise would have made him a terrible duchess, and he’d have made her a terrible husband.

  He’d promised his uncle he’d find a wife this Season, though, so he bowed to Mrs. Haviland, listened for footsteps in the corridor, and withdrew.

  * * *

  Theo typically started her day with the comforting combination of tea served with buttered toast and jam, though those were scant fortification against Diana’s curiosity.

  “But did you waltz?” the child asked. “Did you twirl around the room and make your skirts fly out so all the gentlemen could admire the turn of your ankle?” She gestured extravagantly with her spoon, sending a glob of porridge flying onto Theo’s plate.

  “Di, you’re at table,” Seraphina wailed. “Please don’t discuss ankles at table.”

  “And do try not to send your food sailing through the air,” Theo added, though she’d offered her daughter that suggestion on other occasions. “I danced one waltz and sat out another.” With a handsome gentleman, for once. Not with the wallflowers, widows, or trolling rakes.

  “That was kind of you,” Seraphina said, “to allow the other ladies a chance on the dance floor.”

  At sixteen, Seraphina believed fiercely in a world of propriety, civility, and graciousness, much as Diana, at seven, was devoted to dragons, unicorns, and magicians. They were equally fanciful worlds, but appropriate considering the ages involved.

  Theo, by contrast, paid the trades, darned her stockings, and worried. “I learned something new last night,” she said, adding a dab of jam to Diana’s errant porridge and spooning it onto her toast.

  “Something scandalous?” Diana asked. “Something appalling and horrifying?”

  “Something delicious,” Theo countered. “The Countess of Bellefonte served sliced peaches from the fruit-and-cheese portion of the buffet. I’d never had a peach before.”

  “What sort of name is peach?” Diana asked, swirling her spoon through her porridge. “Peach, reach, teach, screech, beach, each, leech… Peach doesn’t sound like a fruity word.”

  Diana took after her late papa in more than his blond, blue-eyed good looks. She had a butterfly imagination that flitted about unpredictably. Alas, the quality Theo had first taken for charming whimsy in Archimedes Haviland had soon revealed itself to be lack of character. She was determined that Diana not take after her papa in that regard.

  Seraphina aimed a look at her niece such as a mama cat turned on a kitten who certainly hadn’t been among her litter when she’d gone mousing twenty minutes ago.

  “Leech, Diana? You go from speaking of ankles to screeches and leeches?”

  “Diana has a wonderful ear for a rhyme,” Theo said, “and peaches are wonderful too. Sweet, juicy, spicy, and a lovely pink-orange color.”

  Mr. Tresham’s attire had been severe by contrast, as all gentlemen’s must be. Offering Theo the bite of peach on the silver fork, he’d been the image of temptation. Serious blue eyes, a nearly grim mouth, not a hint of flirtation. He was attractive in precisely the forbidding, direct manner designed to earn Theo’s notice.

  Her respect, even—possibly. Perhaps peaches were an intoxicant.

  “Did you bring us a peach?” Diana asked. “Orange is my favorite color.”

  “Yesterday,” Seraphina replied, “your favorite color was black.”

  “Yesterday, I was a Knight of the Round Table. Today, I want a peach.”

  Just like her father. “Peaches are very dear,” Theo said, “and somewhat messy. I did, though, happen to bring home two chocolates that I simply did not have room for.”

  Diana sat up straight and put down her spoon. “Chocolates?”

  Seraphina maintained a dignified silence, though her gaze was painfully hopeful.

  Theo extracted the chocolates from her pocket and unwrapped the table napkin she’d tucked them into.

  “One for each of you. You may eat them at the time of your choosing.”

  “I choose now!” Diana plucked the nearest sweet from the linen. “My favorite color just became chocolate brown.”

  Seraphina set the remaining chocolate on the edge of her plate. “Perhaps after luncheon or last thing tonight.”

  Theo had had the same sighing sense of self-denial where Mr. Tresham was concerned. She could have flirted with him. He was a man much in need of flirtation, and once upon a time, she’d been good at it. She might have bid him to stay rather than seek out Dora Louise, and he might have put aside his scheme to repair Dora’s fortunes for at least another half hour.

  Diana popped the entire chocolate into her mouth, her cheek bulging. “This is so good.”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Seraphina snapped before Theo could offer the same admonition in a gentler form.

  “Don’t let your chocolate get stale before you enjoy it,” Diana retorted.

  “Somewhere between heedless gluttony and endless denial lies a sensible course,” Theo said. “I hope you both find it, though being scolded and judged and carped at never did improve my outlook. I’ll be in the study this morning if either of you need help with your lessons.”

  “I’ll help Di,” Seraphina said, the martyred lament of an adolescent.

  “Mama said she would help me,” Diana replied, now sporting a dab of chocolate at the corner of her lips. “She knows more than you do.”

  Stop. Stop, stop, stop. Was this how Mr. Tresham had felt in Lord Bellefonte’s ballroom? A beleaguered hare pursued by a pack running riot?

  “Your mama has ledgers to deal with,” Seraphina said, not meanly. “I know enough to sort out the occasional word, Di, and I like a break from my French.”

  “What is the French word for peach?” Diana asked.

  Mr. Tresham would know—if the French had such a word. Dora Louise had caught him unawares through cunning and determination, but he’d not be caught the same way again.

  “Will you finish that toast?” Diana asked.

  Theo passed over the last, best quarter slice of toast. Diana was not stout—yet—but she was certainly sturdy.

  “We’ll go for a walk in the park this afternoon if the weather’s fair,” Theo said, which provoked rare matching smiles from both girls. “I’m hungry for sunshine and birdsong.”

  Which were free, unlike dancing slippers, bread, and jam. In the park, Seraphina would mince along at a ladylike gait, while peering about in hopes of being noticed by a handsome young gentleman. Diana would lark around like a kite in a breeze.

  While Theo tried not to worry.

  “Excuse me, ma’am.” Williams, the maid-of-all-work, hovered in the doorway. “You’ve had a delivery.”

  Not another dunning notice. “What sort of delivery?”

  “Flowers, ma’am, and a basket.” Williams ducked back down the corridor and returned carrying a bouquet in a silver bowl.

  That bowl will fetch a few coins warred with an inarticulate pleasure. The flowers were a combination of hydrangeas and sweet pea with sprigs of heather and ferns for greenery. The bouquet was neither exotic nor extravagant, but such an unexpected occasion of beauty that Theo was torn between burying her face amid the blooms and telling Williams to take them away.

  “The ferns mean fascination,” Seraphina said, studying not the flowers, but Theo.

  “In this case, they mean shelter,” Theo replied. “I shared a quiet respite from the dance floor with a gentleman.” For who else could have sent Theo flowers? Please let them be from him. “Was there a note?”

  “The footman who delivered them wore the Duke of Quimbey’s livery, ma’am. No note.”

  Mr. Tresham was His Grace’s heir.

  “Heather is for admiration,” Seraphina said, “or solitude. I’m not sure about the hydrangeas.”

  Diana had finished the toast and was watching this exchange with the alertness of a child who knew when something out of the ordinary had occurred.

  “Hydrangeas are for thanks for understanding,” Theo said. Not a romantic sentiment, but a gentlemanly one.

  “What’s in the basket?” Diana asked.

  Williams retreated into the corridor.

  “Sweet pea means thank you for a lovely time.” Seraphina sipped her tea, her expression much too adult. “Sister, have you been indiscreet?”

  “Of course not.” Though I was tempted. I was so, so tempted. “The gentleman who sat out with me had been pestered by presuming young women, and they left him in peace while I was at his side.”

  Seraphina set down her tea cup. “Those hopeless ninnyhammers think you’re fast. Merely because you’re a pretty widow, they think bad things about you.”

  “Mama is good,” Diana said. “Are those peaches?”

  Williams had brought in a sizable wic99ker basket, a quantity of peaches stacked within.

  “And chocolates?” Seraphina echoed. “He sent you a box of French chocolates for sitting out with him?”

  “He sent three different kinds of cheese too,” Williams said, as if cheese were gold, frankincense, and myrrh. “I do believe that’s a box of gunpowder from Twinings.”

  “Flowers and chocolates from a ducal household,” Seraphina said, tracing a finger over the curve of a fuzzy peach. “And ripe fruit, good tea… For sitting out with him.”

  “I barely know the man.” Theo had known of Mr. Jonathan Tresham, because with Seraphina approaching a presentable age, keeping an eye on eligible bachelors had become prudent. “I’m off to do battle with the ledgers.”

  Leaving the room and getting away from Mr. Tresham’s considerate gesture had become imperative, lest the flowers make Theo’s eyes itch.

  “May I have another chocolate?” Diana asked. “They’re quite small.”

  “Not now,” Theo said. “One treat with breakfast is more than enough. Williams, please take the basket to the kitchen. Cook can prepare us all a compote of the peaches for dessert tonight. We’d best use the fruit before it becomes overripe.”

  Williams, usually a staunch advocate of decorum, flashed a smile. “Cook will be at her recipes all afternoon, finding us the very best treat. I had a peach once. They’re wondrous lovely.”

  The flowers were lovely too, and Theo was tempted to take them with her to the study. Mr. Tresham was grateful to her, and well he should be, for Dora Louise Compton was a trial to the nerves, and she’d nearly succeeded in awarding herself a tiara.

  “Foolish girl,” Theo muttered, unlocking the study door. Her funds were kept in this room, as were the mementos of Archie she’d set aside for Diana. The rest of Archie’s possessions—books, boots, shaving kit, his cherished collection of pistols—had been sold. Theo had made it through the winter without pawning his watch, but that was next on the list of lines she’d promised herself she’d never cross.

  “Mr. Tresham mentioned blackmail,” Theo announced to the empty room. “Said the word aloud. I nearly clapped my hands over my ears.”

  A widow who watched polite society closely learned many secrets—Dora’s older sister had gone to Italy not with a lung fever, but with a child on the way. Lord Davington was rolled up, as he’d confessed to his paramour last week in another library where Theo had been lurking.

  “But I cannot become the thing I loathe,” Theo said, taking the seat behind the desk. She unlocked the right drawer and hefted the ledger book onto the blotter, then allowed herself a moment to acknowledge the hurt.

  Pain ignored didn’t go away. Pain embraced head on didn’t either, but it sometimes subsided from heartbreak to mere heartache. Mr. Tresham would soon be married, a stolen moment with him meant nothing, a basket of peaches—and tea, and cheese, and chocolates—simply meant he was a gentleman.

  The flowers were the problem. Every bloom had more than one meaning, and while hydrangeas might mean gratitude for understanding, they also meant good-bye.

  Theo opened the ledger, picked up a pencil, and set the abacus at her elbow. Winter was over, but the social Season brought with it a host of expenses, and she really did not want to sell Archie’s engraved gold watch.

  Chapter Two

  * * *

  “If I had my way, you’d be sold to the nearest coaching inn for use as an offside wheeler,” Jonathan said. “But you’d gobble up their profits, slobber all over the common, and frighten the maids.”

  Debutantes, being three parts iron determination and one part guile, weren’t put off by Comus. They and their chaperones fussed and cooed over the dog as if he were a spaniel puppy rather than fourteen stone of rambunctious mastiff.

  Big dogs required room to roam, frequently, else big messes resulted and footmen grumbled endlessly. Thus Jonathan was in the park with his uncle’s pet, rather than at the ducal residence wrestling with long-neglected ledgers.

  Comus trotted along, head up, stride brisk, like a nanny ignoring a querulous toddler. The park was showing to advantage on a glorious spring afternoon, and no self-respecting canine could fail to enjoy a walk beneath the maples.

  Jonathan, unlike the dratted dog, was preoccupied with thoughts of the previous evening. He’d sent the basket and flowers to Mrs. Haviland on impulse—unlike him, though motivated by genuine gratitude. Far better to be ambling through the park today than procuring a special license at Doctors’ Commons.

  “You want off the leash,” Jonathan said, taking a side path. “I want off the leash too.” His afternoon would be taken up with a board of governors’ meeting for a boys’ school, and the topic—the budget—was likely to be contentious.

  How much nicer, if he’d been free to spend the afternoon reading in a back garden or pretending to read while stealing a nap.

  When he and Comus had traveled enough distance to reach a secluded patch of grass far from the busier walkways and bridle paths, Jonathan unfastened the dog’s leash.

  “Go,” he said, waving the leash. “Sniff and piss and roll, comport yourself like a dog, but don’t leave this clearing.”

  Comus was already nose down in the grass and heading for the hedgerow ringing the clearing. Jonathan took the lone bench and considered a pretty widow whose quick thinking had averted disaster.

  What sort of name was Theodosia?

  Had she loved her late husband? She’d struck Jonathan as pragmatic, but not unfeeling. He liked to think of himself in the same regard, though his business associates would scoff at so soft a description.

  Comus rooted around in the undergrowth beneath the maples, pushing through leaves and bracken on the scent of something interesting. Mid-snuffle, he stopped and raised his head, gazing up the path.

  “Come,” Jonathan said, rising. “Comus, come.”

  The dog padded over, and Jonathan was refastening the leash when a young girl pelted into the clearing.

  “Hello,” she said, careening to a stop and swiping blond hair from her eyes. “You are very handsome. What’s your name?”

  Forward little thing. And yet, for a child to consider Jonathan handsome was an honest assessment, rather than calculated flattery.

  “Jonathan Tresham.”

  “Not you, silly. This gorgeous fellow at your side.” She skipped up to Comus and stroked his head. “How lucky you are to have such a pet. I want a dog, but Mama says they are dear—everything is dear—and they need a lot of minding. I’m Diana.”

  The huntress? “This is Comus. He’s not mine, but I’m tasked with exercising him.”

  “Lucky, lucky you. Does he do tricks?”

  This conversation was inane, but then, Jonathan’s whole purpose for being in London was inane. If he was successful in finding a spouse, children would doubtless result, and more such conversations would likely follow.

  Pointless, inane, tedious… but then, Jonathan knew what it was to be a child for whom nobody had any time.

  “He can shake hands. You stand in front of him and look him in the eye.”

  The girl complied. One of her braids was coming unraveled. The ribbon on the other had slipped precariously low.

  “Like this?”

  “Yes, and don’t smile. He thinks showing your teeth means you’re trying to start an argument. Hold out your left hand and tell him to shake.”

  She stuck out her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Comus. Shake.”

  The dog looked at Jonathan. Translate that, please.

  “He’s young,” Jonathan said. “Doesn’t have much confidence. You must be self-assured if you’re to convince him of your authority.”

  The girl was giving Jonathan the same look the mastiff had. “What does that mean?”

  Jonathan hunkered before the dog. “Shake, Comus.”

  A large, muddy paw was raised. Jonathan shook gingerly—the dog would be confused otherwise—and rose.

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