How to Ruin a Duke: A Novella Duet Read online

  So she asked, “Who could have stuffed a note into your horn?” Curiosity might have killed a cat, but it had never been known to harm a person or hedgehog.

  “The mother of the young fellow I was meant to be tutoring? Wife of the man who dismissed me? I can’t imagine who else.” Thorn frowned. “Maybe that’s why he dismissed me, if he saw his wife shoving a note into my horn.”

  “Dear me, yes. Flirting with a married woman? How scandalous.”

  “In this instance, it was one-sided. I can’t help what someone writes to me in a note.” He sounded frustrated as he began to pack his horn back into its case. “If How to Ruin a Duke is to cost me clients, I ought to bill the author.”

  “Fortunately for him or her, the author is anonymous.”

  “Ah. Bad luck for me.” He shook it off, flashing a grin. “Or not so bad, since it brought me here.”

  “I thought you weren’t an incorrigible flirt, Mr. Thorn.”

  “Well. Not incorrigible.” Those brown eyes were warm on hers, or maybe it was Rowena who was warm. And why not? It was a fine spring day, and the light slanting through the shop windows was bright and clear.

  “As we’re indulging each other’s curiosity, Miss Fairweather, will you tell me how you came to run this shop?”

  “Because I’m a Fairweather,” Rowena said simply. “It’s in my blood.”

  Though she wished she had as much fortune as she did pedigree.

  Fairweather’s was a shop to be proud of, nestled in the heart of London at an elegant address. On Bond Street, there was foot traffic at all hours, with a jeweler and a music seller and a china warehouse and a cutler almost at hand. Her great-great-grandfather had chosen the spot well, fashionable and fast-paced, and taken a ninety-nine-year lease.

  Unfortunately, that lease was now up for renewal, and the landlord offered the building at a dramatically higher rate. The old rent of one hundred pounds a year was a scramble and scrimp now that Rowena was doing the work of two on her own. To pay one hundred fifty guineas? She might as well have been asked to fetch St. Edward’s Crown from the Tower of London.

  “The shop is secure and in good hands,” she added, as much for her own benefit as for Thorn’s. “I build upon generations of good reputation.”

  “And this good reputation persists under the management of a young woman?” Thorn appeared curious rather than skeptical, so she gave him an honest reply.

  “It does to anyone who’s honest about the matter. Even before my father’s death a year ago, I was doing much of the repair work. He had developed arthritis, so mine were the hands and his the mind, until he’d taught me all he could.”

  In truth, though Rowena maintained the same quality of work, Fairweather’s wasn’t quite the same anymore. Her father had been chatty and personable, making a friend of everyone whose instrument he took on for repair. Customers seemed to miss him as much as Rowena did—and upstairs, in the family quarters, she felt her solitude even more.

  Once upon a time, she’d been told, the large building bustled both upstairs and down. In past generations there had been Fairweather brothers and sisters and their offspring, sisters-in-law and elderly grandparents and even a spinster aunt or two. A true family workshop, like the Amatis in Italy in an earlier century.

  But Rowena’s father had married late, and her parents had had her still later. Her mother had died in childbed, and the spinster aunts and grandparents, too, had all moved along to the other side of life.

  Rowena couldn’t miss what she’d never had, but she could miss the idea of it.

  Now it was just her, a cook who came three times a week, a maid-of-all-work, her old nanny, and her hedgehog Cotton. It all felt rather threadbare, regardless of the thickness of the velvet curtain. There was a carewornness that came from the spirit, not from the eye.

  But perhaps Rowena was the only one who perceived it. Simon Thorn appeared to be enjoying the conversation, as though he thought all was well with both Fairweather’s and its proprietress.

  “Do you like the work of a luthier?” He leaned forward, elbows on the counter, and fixed those curious dark eyes on hers. “I’ve had many occupations, but never yours.”

  Did she like her work? She’d never thought about it. She had taken it for granted since she’d first stretched a catgut string that this was the work she would do.

  Alongside her father, she’d more than liked the work, once. She’d loved it. But there was less to enjoy about running a family establishment alone.

  Save the shop, her father had told her with his dying breath. Run it as I’ve taught you, and all will be well. I’m relying on you. We all are.

  She’d thought at the time that he meant Nanny and Cook and the maid, Alice. But she wondered now whether he had meant the century of Fairweathers who had done business at this spot. All the previous generations whose expectations now stacked upon her, burdening her.

  She took up the ruined hairpin and tried to bend it back into shape. “It’s difficult work, but it is satisfying. I like bringing music back to instruments that have lost it.”

  “As you did to mine.” He smiled. “What do I owe you for your intervention, Miss Fairweather?”

  All of a sudden, she didn’t want to turn this chance meeting into a transaction. “Oh, nothing. There’s no fee.” She snapped up the still-wandering Cotton before the animal could stumble over the edge of the counter.

  “But you made my instrument playable again. That’s worth something.” He straightened up from his slouch, pulling a purse from his pocket.

  “A favor for a fellow musician. I’m only out a hairpin.”

  He hesitated, then put away his purse again. “I’m in your debt, then.”

  “You’re not. You’re really not.” She knelt, depositing Cotton on the floor to wander in search of delicious insects. When Rowena stood to face Thorn again, she added, “Bring me a new hairpin sometime if you wish. Or if you have the time now, play me something pretty.”

  “Now that’s an irresistible request. Why not both?” He smiled at her, his expression open and sunny as he unfastened the case holding his horn.

  As he took up the instrument, she noticed every detail. The easy comfort with which he hefted it. The softness of his gaze as he rummaged through memory for a tune. His left hand gripped the golden scribble of tubing and lifted the instrument, and his right hand hid within the bell. Rowena glanced at her own right hand and thought—not for the first time—that she’d have liked to try playing the horn.

  Then his lips shaped, a tight press against the mouthpiece like a kiss with purpose, and a tune so old and familiar issued from the horn that Rowena had to laugh and sing along.

  “Lavender’s blue, diddle diddle,

  Lavender’s green,

  When you are king, diddle diddle,

  I shall be queen.

  Lavender’s green, diddle diddle,

  Lavender’s blue,

  You must—”

  She cut off the song in the middle of the line. You must love me, diddle, diddle,

  ’cause I love you. And then came the next verse, about lying together, and her cheeks burned at the thought.

  How could she have forgotten how forward this song was? How hopeful and needy? It was embarrassing to sing those words as if they were her own.

  Thorn halted his playing when she stopped singing, lowering the horn. “Didn’t you like it?”

  “Of course. Your playing is lovely. I just don’t remember any more of the words,” she lied.

  “Ah, I can’t help you there. I can remember a melody if I hear it even once, but I can never recall the words.”

  She bit her lips. “Why did you choose that tune?”

  He shrugged. “It’s called ‘Lavender’s Blue.’ I was trying to think of a song, and you’re wearing blue.”

  Indeed she was, a blue day dress she’d chosen because it matched her eyes.

  His reply was matter-of-fact rather than flirtatious, which she liked. Please,
let him not be an incorrigible flirt. If he were, he teased every woman, and his smiles meant nothing.

  For the second time, Thorn packed his horn away. “Thanks again for your help. I’ll bring you that hairpin soon, all right?”

  She waved this off. “I was only teasing. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I don’t worry about hairpins, Miss Fairweather. But I’d welcome the chance to see you again.”

  That grin, cheeky and sweet at once. Was he flirting with her?

  Maybe she should have charged him a fee after all and sent him on his way.

  Or maybe she should have sung more of “Lavender’s Blue” with him.

  “Oh,” she said, just as when he’d entered the shop.

  This incoherence seemed to please him, for the grin persisted even as his hand drifted from hers, as he left the building. The little bell over the door jingled its farewell to him, and then Rowena was alone.

  Except for a wandering hedgehog underfoot, old Nanny upstairs, a sometime cook in the basement kitchen, and a maid dusting the few chambers that weren’t shut up.

  They were relying on her. They all were.

  She really should have charged Mr. Thorn a fee. But if she had, he wouldn’t come back again—and with the obligation of a hairpin hanging over him, he just might.

  Not that it mattered if he did. She was a luthier, not a…a…horn-note-puller. A folk-song-singer. A hairpin-provider.

  She pushed aside the velvet curtain and returned to her workroom. How to Ruin a Duke tempted her from the table. The violoncello with the broken neck beckoned her from its resting place against the wall.

  “Work first,” she decided.

  Oh, she knew her financial problems couldn’t be solved one instrument at a time. They couldn’t be solved before the lease ended, not by anything less than a miracle. But miracles happened occasionally—and she wouldn’t find that miracle in the pages of a book, no matter how salacious. The Duke of Amorous’s problems vanished in the face of his infinite resources, but he wasn’t going to stop by to fix hers. She had to face them herself.

  The thought was usually discouraging. But at the moment, as she loosened the tuning pegs of the wounded violoncello, then uncoiled the strings to free the broken piece of the instrument’s neck, she found herself humming.

  A brisk young man, diddle diddle,

  Met with a maid,

  And laid her down, diddle diddle

  Under the shade…

  Chapter Two

  “Do not take a duke to partner! He will draw you astray and then run off with the spoils while you are trying to discover where he has led you.”

  From How to Ruin a Duke by Anonymous

  By night, Simon Thorn saw Vauxhall as it was intended to appear: a wonderland of glowing lights and whirling music and secret whispers. But during the day, he couldn’t help but notice the flaking gilt and pasteboard that made up London’s favorite pleasure garden.

  The orchestra pavilion where the musicians practiced and played was a half hexagon of white scrollwork at the center of the park’s Grand Walk. The pavilion was boosted above the ground and festooned with lamps, lit at night to make it look like a jeweled crown. The effect was probably striking, but at all hours, the musicians were left cramped and crammed. Their stage had them elbow to elbow, and the red wool jackets they wore while performing were as hot as fur blankets.

  Still, it was steady work. And with the loss of Lord Farleigh’s son as a student, this was the only source of income left to Simon. He’d have to find other employment, and soon. The vicar from Market Thistleton—his sole source of news on the people Simon had left behind—had broken the silence Simon had requested on Elias Howard to mention that Howard was having trouble with his hand again. This time he was contemplating the desperate move of an amputation, the poor devil.

  And it was all Simon’s fault. He’d been a fool of a boy, more eager than careful as a tinworker’s younger apprentice, and he’d caused the accident that left the older, wiser, better Howard—a much more skilled apprentice—injured and ruined.

  For thirteen years, he’d sent whatever money he could, but dribs and drabs of coin were no better than a droplet of laudanum on a grueling pain. It didn’t fix the problem; it didn’t soothe the ache. Only a grand dose, a grand investment, would do that. And playing a horn didn’t pay Simon enough, just as training horses hadn’t, working as a law clerk hadn’t, selling vials of gin labeled as cures for baldness hadn’t. And a dozen other jobs he had tried over the years, always moving toward London, always away from the place he’d once called home.

  Rehearsal stretched on under the watery afternoon sun. Simon settled his horn in his lap and picked at the peeling paint of the railing surrounding the orchestra pavilion, waiting for the conductor to finish squawking at the fiddles. One of them—Hawkins, as usual— was horribly out of tune. Just as usual, Hawkins was blaming the fiddler next to him.

  “Hawkins wouldn’t have this job for a minute if he wasn’t married to the conductor’s daughter,” muttered Botts, the other horn player in the Vauxhall orchestra.

  “Right you are,” Simon agreed. “I met a luthier today who could set Hawkins straight.”

  “Wish he’d come by and do it,” Botts replied. “Then we’d get through our rehearsal and I could get home for a bit of sleep before tonight’s performance.”

  Simon decided not to correct the pronoun Botts had applied to the luthier. It wasn’t as if Miss Fairweather was his personal discovery, but somehow he didn’t like the idea of Botts making light of her. Or worse, pursuing her with one of his tawdry notes.

  Like Simon, Alfred Botts was a bachelor; unlike Simon, he had no other financial obligations. Playing at Vauxhall paid the bills during the Season. Botts confided that when Vauxhall closed for the year, he planned to try his luck with a few orchestras on the Continent.

  “Might as well learn what French women are like,” Botts gloated. “Or Italian women, or Austrian women. M’time’s my own.”

  “Your time,” Simon reminded him, “is also Violetta’s, and Frances’s, and Mariah’s, and Bertha’s, and…who else have you sent love notes to in the last few weeks?”

  “All right, so I’ll leave a few fluttering hearts behind me.” Botts winked. “None of ’em have to know about the other ladies, do they?”

  “Horns! Quiet!” The conductor, a well-padded man named Clarke, slapped a flat palm onto the music stand before him, sending his papers into a disorderly shuffle.

  Botts lifted his hands in a gesture of apology. Simon picked another fleck of white paint from the railing. Since he wasn’t giving lessons to Lord Farleigh’s son anymore, maybe he could get work repainting some of the faded buildings at Vauxhall.

  As Clarke grumbled and rearranged his music, a messenger hared across the quadrangle of the Great Walk. The youth tramped up the pavilion steps and thrust the paper at the conductor. “His lordship said I wasn’t to wait for a reply, but that you’d best obey.”

  When Clarke unfolded the message, his thundercloud expression turned yet grimmer. He darted a look at the horns. “Very well. Thank you.”

  And Simon developed a bad feeling about what was written in that note.

  The messenger left the way he’d come. Crumpling the message, Clarke said, “We’ll end rehearsal now. You’re all dismissed. Be back half an hour before the park opens tonight.”

  Amidst the chaos of people rising, of instruments being stowed in tight quarters, the conductor’s voice floated above: “Thorn. A word, please.”

  And Simon’s feeling went from bad to worse.

  He didn’t inhabit lofty circles of Society. So if a “his lordship” was involved in the note, and obedience, and Simon too, there was a non-zero chance that Lord Farleigh was involved.

  Damnation. After packing his horn as slowly as possible, letting the other musicians drift away, he strolled through the lessening crush to stand at the conductor’s side.

  “Sir? You wish to speak to me?�
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  Clarke took too long squaring his music sheets, then slipping them into his satchel. As tall as he was broad, he finally looked up and caught Simon’s eye. “It’s about the note brought by that messenger.”

  And Simon knew his bad feeling was justified. “From Lord Farleigh,” he guessed, and Clarke nodded.

  “I don’t know what you did to him,” said the older man, “but he’s displeased with you. Says you’ve a bad character and he’ll blackball Vauxhall throughout the ton if you’re kept on in the orchestra.”

  Simon cursed.

  “Exactly,” agreed Clarke. “He’s influential enough to do it. The Barrett brothers are trying to cut costs, to keep Vauxhall profitable. They’ve asked me to reduce the size of the orchestra, but I’ve been fighting them on that. If there’s a chance you could lose them business in the beau monde, though…well, I’m sorry. I’ve got to go along with this. You understand.”

  He hadn’t said the words You’re out of a job, or You’re the one being blackballed. But the meaning was clear enough.

  “Oh, yes. I understand very well.” The crumpled letter Miss Fairweather had pulled from the horn was rubbish in Simon’s pocket.

  He understood that Lady Farleigh had wanted to live a bit of How to Ruin a Duke, and he’d been conveniently at hand. The flirtatious missive had been a scandal of opportunity; he didn’t fool himself to the contrary.

  Unfortunately, her husband hadn’t seen the matter that way. And in one day, Simon had lost both his jobs.

  His horn was heavy in its case, the handle digging into his hand as he trudged down the steps of the pavilion for the last time. Thinking, thinking.

  He had done many jobs besides playing a horn. The question was, which would he seize upon next? He needed money for Howard, and quickly. And with one lesson at a time, one rehearsal and performance at a time, he’d never earn enough. Not while his employment and pay depended on the whims of those with more power than he.

  Miss Fairweather, now, she had it a bit better. She took the tasks she wished to and turned down the ones she didn’t. She was her own mistress. It was a striking autonomy.