Regency Redemption: The Inconvenient Duchess / An Unladylike Offer. Christine Merrill

lifted her easily up into the saddle. She kept her face averted from his, so he couldn’t see the crimson in her cheeks.

      There was something wrong with her. There must be. Some wickedness brought on by too much knowledge. She wished that she was as naïve and innocent as she pretended to be. But Cici had told her everything and had been so matter of fact about the pleasures of the flesh. Perhaps that was why she responded so quickly to a man’s touch. And the touch of a man who was not her husband. The fact that the man in question was her husband’s brother made it even worse, for she would have to be in close proximity to him, probably for the rest of their lives. She must master the feeling. Gain control of herself so that no one would ever know. Not the duke. And certainly not St John.

       Chapter Twelve

      Marcus looked at the house in surprise. Not what he had expected. Not at all. He’d imagined a quiet cottage where two ladies might spend their years in modesty, waiting for an improvement in position. Genteel poverty.

      There was nothing genteel about his new wife’s old home. It was poverty, pure and simple. Smaller than the homes of his tenants and packed cheek by jowl between other similar houses. He strode to the door and knocked.

      The woman who answered dropped a curtsy, but looked at him with undisguised suspicion. ‘Lost your way, milord?’

      ‘Lady Cecily Dawson?’

      She glared back at him. ‘The “Lady” is long retired from her profession, and you’d best seek your amusements elsewhere.’

      ‘If I could see her, please.’

      ‘Come to get a look at her after all these years? What are you, then? The son of one of her clients, come to be initiated? A bit old for that, aren’t you?’

      ‘I beg your pardon.’

      ‘You take my meaning plain enough. Get yourself off, in every sense of the word. The lady will be no help to you.’

      He got his foot in the door in time to halt the slam, and pushed roughly past her, into the tiny room. ‘Close the door. The questions I have to ask are better handled away from prying eyes.’ He tossed his purse on the table and watched her eyes light as it made a satisfying clink. ‘I require information. The money’s yours if you can provide it.’

      She dropped another curtsy, this one not tinged with irony. ‘At your service, milord.’

      ‘I want the whereabouts of Lady Cecily Dawson, and any information you can provide about her ward, Lady Miranda Grey.’

      The colour drained out of the woman before him. And she clutched the table edge. ‘Why would you be wanting that?’

      ‘To satisfy my mind in certain details of Miss Grey’s life before her recent marriage.’

      ‘She’s done it, then?’ The avarice in the old woman’s eyes changed to a glint of hope. ‘She’s safely married.’

      ‘Yes.’

      The woman pushed on. ‘And her husband. What is he like?’

      ‘He is a very powerful man, and impatient for information. Provide it, and keep the gold on the table—delay any longer and things will go bad for you.’

      A man’s voice rose from the curtained corner of the room behind him. ‘That’s enough, Cici. I’ll talk to the gentleman.’ The last word was said with a touch of scorn. The man that appeared from behind the curtain was in his mid-fifties, but hard work had left him much older. He walked with a cane, and the hands that held it were gnarled and knotted, the knuckles misshapen. He glared at the duke as though this were the reception room of a great house, and not a hovel, and said in a firm tone, ‘And whom do I have the honour of addressing, sir?’

      ‘Someone who wishes to remain anonymous.’

      ‘As do we. But you are the one who forced his way into my home, and you can take your gold and go, or introduce yourself properly. You have my word that your identity will go no further than these walls.’

      ‘Your word? And what is that worth to me?’

      ‘It is all I have to offer, so it will have to do.’

      ‘Very well, I am Marcus Radwell, Duke of Haughleigh.’ He heard a sharp gasp escape the lady behind him. ‘And you, sir?’

      ‘I, your Grace, am Sir Anthony Grey, father of the young lady you are enquiring after.’

      Marcus resisted the temptation to grab the corner of the table for support. Just what had he wandered into this time? ‘Her father? I was led to believe—’

      ‘That she was an orphan? It could well have been the case. Indeed, it would have been better had it been true.’ He looked at the duke in curiosity. ‘Tell me, Your Grace, before we go further—are you my daughter’s husband?’

      ‘Yes.’ The word came out as a croak, and he cleared his throat to master his voice before speaking again.

      ‘And you have come to London, seeking the truth.’

      ‘I left on our wedding night.’ He coughed again. Facing the girl’s father, even under these circumstances, it was a damned difficult subject. ‘Before an annulment became impossible.’

      ‘And where is my daughter, now?’

      ‘Safely in Devon. At my home.’

      ‘And your decision about her depends on the results of your search here?’

      ‘And on her wishes. I have no desire to force marriage on her, if she is unwilling.’

      Her father set his face in resolve. ‘Do not trouble yourself as regards her wishes, your Grace. Delicate sensibilities can be saved for those women that can afford them. My health is failing and I can no longer pretend to support the three of us. Her choices here are a place in service in a great house, or walking the street. If you still wish to have her, after today, she will choose you and be grateful.’

      ‘Proceed then, Sir Anthony.’

      The man barked a laugh at the title. ‘How curious to be addressed so, after all this time. Very well, then. My story.

      ‘Once, some thirteen years past, I was a happy man, with a beautiful wife, a daughter who was a joy to me and expectations of a son to carry on my name. Unfortunately, my wife died, giving birth to our second child, and the child died as well. The grief quite unhinged me. Your Grace, are you, as Cici remembered, a widower for similar reasons?’

      Marcus gave a faint nod.

      ‘Then you can understand the grief and disappointment, and perhaps sympathise with the depths to which I sunk. I turned from the daughter I loved, and, in the space of a few years, I destroyed her inheritance and my own, gambling away the land, drinking until late in the evening. When I ran out of money, I borrowed from friends. I depleted all resources available to me, and hoped to blow my brains out and avoid the consequences of my actions. When I was loading the gun to end my life, my daughter came into the room, still so innocent, and pleaded with me to spend just a few moments with her as I used to. One look into those eyes changed my course and hardened my resolve to find a way out of my difficulties.

      ‘Alas, there was no honourable course available. The creditors were at my door. So I decamped—’ he gestured around him ‘—to a place so low that my friends and creditors would never think to look for me. It must be better, I thought, to find honest work and keep what little I earned than to face debtors’ prison in London. And if I went to prison, what would happen to my Miranda?

      ‘There was a factory here with an opening for a clerk. It was less than we were used to, but if we lived simply we could manage. I spent my days in the office, totting up figures and copying, and things were well for a time.’ Sir Anthony waved a clawed hand before his face. ‘But it was not