The Inconvenient Duchess. Christine Merrill

almost shivered at the thought that she might soon know for sure. She dropped a curtsy.

      He continued to stare at her in puzzlement. ‘I’m sorry, my dear. You have the better of me. As far as I know, we weren’t expecting any guests.’

      She frowned. ‘My guardian wrote to your mother. It was supposed to be all arranged. Of course, I was rather surprised when there was no one to meet the coach, but...’

      He was frowning now, but there was a look of dawning comprehension. ‘I see. If my mother arranged it, that would explain why you expected...’ He paused again and began cautiously. ‘Did you know my mother well?’

      ‘Me? No, not at all. My guardian and she were school friends. They corresponded.’ She fumbled in her reticule and removed the damp and much-handled letter of introduction, offering it to him.

      ‘Then you didn’t know of my mother’s illness.’ He took the letter and scanned it, eyebrows raised as he glanced over at her. Then he slipped off his fashionable dark jacket and revealed the black armband tied about the sleeve of his shirt. ‘I’m afraid you’re six weeks too late to have an appointment with my mother, unless you have powers not possessed by the other members of this household. The wreath’s just off the door. I suppose it’s disrespectful of me to say so, but you didn’t miss much. At the best of times, my mother was no pleasure. Here, now...’

      He reached for her as she collapsed into the chair, no longer heeding the water soaking into the upholstery from her sodden gown.

      ‘I thought, since you didn’t know her... I didn’t expect this to affect you so. Can I get you something...brandy...? Decanter empty again...Wilkins! Damn that man.’ He threw open the door and shouted down the hall, trying to locate the muttering butler. ‘Wilkins! Where’s the brandy?’

      So she’d arrived dripping wet, unescorted and unexpected, into a house of mourning, with a dubious letter of introduction, expecting to work her way into the affections of a peer and secure an offer before he asked too many questions and sent her home. She buried her head in her hands, wishing that she could soak into the carpet and disappear like the rain trickling from her gown.

      ‘What the hell is going on?’ His Grace had found someone, but the answering voice in the hall was clearly not the butler. ‘St John, what is the meaning of shouting up and down the halls for brandy? Have you no shame at all? Drink the house dry if you must, but have the common decency to do it in quiet.’ The voice grew louder as it approached the open doorway.

      ‘And who is this? I swear to God, St John, if this drowned rat is your doing, be damned to our mother’s memory, I’ll throw you out in the rain, brandy and girl and all.’

      Miranda looked up to find a stranger framed in the doorway. He was everything that the other man was not. Dark hair, with a streak of grey at each temple, and a face creased by bitterness and hard living. An unsmiling mouth. And his eyes were the grey of a sky before a storm. Strength and power radiated from him like heat from the fire.

      The other man ducked under his arm and strode back into the room, proffering a brandy snifter. Then he reconsidered and kept it for himself, taking a long drink before speaking.

      ‘For a change, dear brother, you can’t blame this muddle on me. The girl is your problem, not mine, and comes courtesy of our departed mother.’ He waved the letter of introduction in salute before passing it to his brother. ‘May I present Lady Miranda Grey, come to see his Grace the Duke of Haughleigh.’ The blond man grinned.

      ‘You’re the duke?’ She looked to the imposing man in the doorway and wondered how she could have been so wrong. When this man had entered the room, his brother had faded to insignificance. She tried to stand up to curtsy again, but her knees gave out and she plopped back on to the sofa. The water in her boots made a squelching sound as she moved.

      He stared back. ‘Of course I’m the duke. This is my home you’ve come to. Who were you expecting to find? The Prince Regent?’

      The other man grinned. ‘I think she was under the mistaken impression that I was the duke. I’d just come into the library, looking for the brandy decanter, and found her waiting here...’

      ‘For how long?’ snapped his brother.

      ‘Moments. Scant moments, although I would have enjoyed more time alone with Lady Miranda. She’s a charming conversationalist.’

      ‘And, during this charming conversation, you neglected to mention your name, and allowed her to go on in her mistake.’ He turned from his brother to her.

      His gaze caught hers and held it a moment too long as though he could read her heart in her eyes. She looked away in embarrassment and gestured helplessly to the letter of introduction. ‘I was expected. I had no idea...about your mother.

      ‘I’m so sorry,’ she added as an afterthought.

      ‘Not as sorry as I am.’ He scanned the letter. ‘Damn that woman. She made me promise. But it was a deathbed promise, and I said the words hoping her demise would absolve me of action.’

      ‘You promised to marry me, hoping your mother would die?’ She stared back in horror.

      ‘I promised to meet you. Nothing more. If my mother had died that night, as it appeared she might, who was to know what I promised her? But she lingered.’ He waved the paper. ‘Obviously long enough to post an invitation. And now here you are. With a maid, I trust?’

      ‘Ahhh...no.’ She struggled with the answer. It was as she’d feared. He must think she was beyond all sense, travelling unchaperoned to visit strangers. ‘She was taken ill and was unable to accompany me.’ As the lie fell from her lips, she forced herself to meet the duke’s unwavering gaze.

      ‘Surely, your guardian...’

      ‘Unfortunately, no. She is also in ill health, no longer fit to travel.’ Miranda sighed convincingly. Cici was strong as an ox, and had sworn that it would take a team of them to drag her back into the presence of the duke’s mother.

      ‘And you travelled alone? From London?’

      ‘On the mail coach,’ she finished. ‘I rode on top with the driver. It was unorthodox, but not improper.’ And inexpensive.

      ‘And when you arrived in Devon?’

      ‘I was surprised that there was no one to meet me. I inquired the direction, and I walked.’

      ‘Four miles? Cross-country? In the pouring rain?’

      ‘After London, I enjoyed the fresh air.’ She need not mention the savings of not hiring a gig.

      ‘And you had no surfeit of air, riding for hours on the roof of the mail coach?’ He was looking at her as though she was crack-brained.

      ‘I like storms.’ It was an outright lie, but the best she could do. Any love for storms that she might have had had disappeared when the rain permeated her petticoat and ran in icy rivers down her legs.

      ‘And do you also like dishonour, to court it so?’

      She bowed her head again, no longer able to look him in the eye. It had been a mistake to come here. Her behaviour had been outlandish, but she had not been trying to compromise herself. In walking to the house, she had risked all, and now, if the duke turned her out and she had to find her own way home, there would be no way to repair the damage to her reputation.

      He gestured around the room. ‘You’re miles from the protection of society in the company of a pair of notorious rakes.’

      ‘Notorious?’ She compared them. The duke looked dangerous enough, but it was hard to believe his brother was a threat to her honour.

      ‘In these parts, certainly. Does anyone know you’re here?’

      ‘I asked direction of a respectable gentleman and his wife.’

      ‘The man, so tall?’ The duke sketched a measurement with his hand. ‘And plump. With grey hair.