The Inconvenient Duchess. Christine Merrill

in confusion. Blackmail. And, knowing his mother, it was a case of chickens come home to roost. If she had been without guilt, she’d have destroyed the letters and he’d have known nothing about it. What could his mother have done to set her immortal soul in jeopardy? To make her so hated that an old friend would pray for her damnation?

      Any number of things, he thought grimly, if this Cecily woman stood between her and a goal. A man, perhaps? His father, he hoped. It would make the comments about the succession fall into place. His mother had been more than conscious of the family honour and its place in history. The need for a legitimate heir.

      And the need to keep secret things secret.

      He had been, too, at one time, before bitter experience had lifted the scales from his eyes. Some families were so corrupt it was better to let them die without issue. Some honour did not deserve to be protected. Some secrets were better exposed to the light. It relieved them of their power to taint their surroundings and destroy the lives of those around them.

      And what fresh shame did this girl have, that his family was responsible for? St John, most likely. Carrying another by-blow, to be shuffled quietly into the family deck.

      He frowned. But that couldn’t be right. The letters spoke of old crimes. And when he’d come on the girl and St John together, there had been no sense of conspiracy. She’d seemed a complete stranger to him and to this house. Lost in her surroundings.

      She was not a pretty girl, certainly. But he’d not seen her at her best. Her long dark hair was falling from its pins, bedraggled and wet. The gown she’d worn had never been fashionable and being soaked in the storm had made it even more shapeless. It clung to her tall, bony frame the way that the hair stuck to the sharp contours of her face. Everything about her was hard: the lines of her face and body, the set of her mouth, the look in her eyes.

      He smiled. A woman after his own heart. Maybe they would do well together, after all.

      * * *

      She looked around in despair. So this was to be her new home. Not this room, she hoped. It was grand enough for a duchess.

      Precisely why she did not belong in it.

      She forced that thought out of her mind.

      ‘This is the life you belong to, not the life you’ve lived so far. The past is an aberration. The future is merely a return to the correct path.’

      All right. She had better take Cici’s words to heart. Repeat them as often as necessary until they became the truth.

      Of course, if this was the life she was meant to have, then dust and cobwebs were an inherent part of her destiny. She’d hoped, when she finally got to enjoy the comforts of a great house, she would not be expected to clean it first. This room had not been aired in years. It would take a stout ladder to get up to the sconces to scrub off the tarnish and the grime, and to the top of the undusted mantelpiece. Hell and damnation upon the head of the man who thought that high ceilings lent majesty to a room.

      She pulled back the dusty curtains on the window to peer into the rain-streaked night. This might be the front of the house, and those lumps below could be the view of a formal garden. No doubt gone to seed like everything else.

      Was her new husband poor, that his estate had faded so? Cici had thought not. ‘Rich enough to waste money on whores,’ she’d said. But then, she’d described the dowager as a spider at the centre of a great web. Miranda hadn’t expected to come and find the web empty.

      Cici would have been overjoyed, she was sure. The weak part of the plan had always been the co-operation of the son. The dowager could be forced, but how would she gain the co-operation of the son without revealing all? Cici had hoped that one or the other of the two men was so hopelessly under the thumb of his mother as to agree without question when a suitable woman was put before him. But she’d had her doubts. If the sons were in their mother’s control, they’d have been married already.

      To stumble into complete ruin was more good fortune than she could hope for.

      She smothered her rising guilt. The duke had been right. She’d achieved her purpose and should derive some pleasure from it. She was about to become the lady to a very great, and very dirty, estate. She was about to marry a duke, the prize of every young girl of the ton. And have his heir.

      She sat down on the edge of the bed. That was the crux of the problem. To have the heirs, she would have to become much more familiar with the Duke of Haughleigh than she would like. She was going to have to climb in the bed of that intimidating man and...

      Lie very still and think of something else, she supposed. Cici had assured her that there were many types of men. And that the side they showed in the drawing room was not what she might see in the bedroom. She hoped not, or he’d spend the night interrogating her and tapping his foot when things did not go as fast as he’d hoped. She imagined him, standing over her on breakfast of their second wedded day, demanding to know why she wasn’t increasing.

      ‘Unfair. Unfair,’ Cici remonstrated in her head. ‘How can you claim to know a man you just met? Give him a chance.’

      All right. A chance. And he had offered for her, when he’d realised her circumstances. He could have left her to ruin. If he could get over his initial anger at being trapped into a union, he might make a fine husband. She would try to make a decent wife.

      And in a house as large as this, they might make do quite well without seeing each other. There was certainly enough space.

      A soft knock sounded at the door. ‘Lady Miranda? His Lordship sent me up to do for you.’ A mob-capped head poked around the corner of the slightly opened door. ‘May I come in, ma’am?’

      ‘Yes, please.’

      ‘I’m Polly, ma’am. Not much of a lady’s maid, I’m afraid. There’s not been any call for it. The dowager’s woman went back to her people after the funeral.’

      ‘Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a lady’s maid, Polly, so we’ll just have to muddle through this together.’

      The girl smiled and entered, carrying a tray with a teapot and a light supper. She set it down on a small table by the window. ‘Lord St John thought you’d be happier eating up here, ma’am. Supper in these parts is somewhat irregular.’

      ‘Irregular?’ As in, eaten seldom? Eaten at irregular times? Was the food strange in some way?

      She glanced down at the meal, which consisted of a runny stew and a crust of dry bread. Certainly not what she’d expected. Too close to the poor meals she was used to. She tasted.

      But not as well prepared.

      ‘The house is still finding its way after her Grace’s death.’ The maid bowed her head in a second’s reverent silence.

      ‘And what was the pattern before?’

      ‘Her Grace would mostly take a tray in her room, of the evenings.’

      ‘And her sons?’

      ‘Weren’t here, ma’am. Lord St John was mostly up in London. And his Grace was on the continent. Paris and such. He din’t come back ’til just before his mother died, to make peace. And Lord St John almost missed the funeral.’

      It was just as well that she was disgraced, she thought. It didn’t sound like either of the men would have had her because of the gentle pleadings of their mother.

      ‘When will we be expecting the rest of your things, ma’am?’ Polly was shaking the wrinkles out of a rather forlorn evening gown, surprised at having reached the bottom of the valise so soon. There was no good way to explain that the maid had seen the sum total of her trousseau: two day dresses, a gown and the travelling dress drying on a rack in the corner, supplemented by a pair of limp fichus, worn gloves and darned stockings.

      ‘I’m afraid there aren’t any more things, Polly. There was a problem on the coach,’ she lied. ‘There was a trunk, but it didn’t make the trip with me.