The Straight-Laced Duke Selbourne, Page 2

  “Connie! Be careful!”

  “Careful? Oh, that’s no fun, darling! Look! Look at me, Cesse—I’m all but flying!”

  Now, Cecil might have been tired. He might have thought a small nap in order, or at least a few minutes spent chatting over glasses of wine before they moved on to other pursuits. But Cecil was also a man. A man with wants, a man with needs. A man very seriously in love for the first time in his life. A man who had been without his woman for five long and lonely nights.

  His Grace’s evening slippers went flying—one hither, one yon. His feet hit the floor. The banyan followed. He let out a long, low growl. With his breeches dragging at his ankles until he could kick free of them, Cecil Seaton, Eighth Duke of Selbourne, went to his woman. Tall. Strong. Proud.

  And randy as hell.

  He slammed the balcony doors behind him as he stepped out onto the narrow span, sealing the pair of them off from the world, and, as an old army man, spared himself a moment to consider the logistics of the thing. The cold stone against his stockinged feet had brought him back to sanity—or as close as he could come to that state with Constance perched straight in front of him, her perfect bosoms heaving above the low cut of her gown. “We may need to rethink this, Connie. It’s too narrow out here for any real sport. If I take more than two steps backward, I’ll be hitting my rump against those damn doors. Can’t we go inside?”

  “What? My knight stumbles?” Constance pouted prettily. “It was such fun being hoisted up here in my swing, Cesse,” she said. “Just like those acrobats I’ve seen flying through the air. Why, I feel quite young again. You will, too, darling, I’m sure of it. Please don’t make us go inside to anything so mundane as a bed.”

  “You render a man insane, Connie,” he said, sighing in surrender.

  She laughed low in her throat as she reached out her arms to him, balancing precariously above the ground. “Come and get me, darling. Let us fly free as the birds.”

  He came and got her.

  Five minutes later Reese—the Compleat Valet, who knew his master preferred to sleep with the night air blowing across his body, no matter what the man might say to the contrary—tippy-toed into the duke’s darkened bedchamber. Still moving quietly, so as not to wake His Grace, he crossed the floor and pushed open the doors to the balcony, giving them an extra shove when his action unexpectedly met with resistance.

  Lady Buxley had never given such a famous, talked-about house party. Her sister-in-law, Isobel, was later rumored to have been quite crushed by the woman’s coup.

  In fact, in the end, Lady Buxley’s house party was acknowledged by one and all as the most exciting of the season.

  Book One

  Oh, no!

  Never say twice!

  I am past thirty,

  and three parts iced over.

  — Matthew Arnold

  Oh! no! we never mention her,

  Her name is never heard;

  My lips are now forbid to speak

  That once familiar word.

  — Thomas Haynes Bayly

  Chapter One

  “Don’t say her name, Nephew,” Lady Gwendolyn Seaton declared with some heat, clapping her hands over her ears as she sat in the drawing room of the Portland Square mansion. “Don’t ever say her name!” She then lowered her hands and looked at her nephew owlishly. “You did say Constance Winstead, didn’t you? Oh, you did. You did! Oh, the horror!”

  Bramwell Seaton, Ninth Duke of Selbourne, crossed one elegantly clad leg over the other as he sat back in his chair and looked at his aunt. “Now I remember why I chose not to tell you about any of this until this morning, when I could put it off no longer. Please don’t fly up into the boughs, Aunt, for it will get us nowhere.”

  The duke watched in some sympathy as the old woman visibly attempted to rein in her overset emotions. He loved his Aunt Gwendolyn dearly, which was a good thing, as he had inherited his father’s spinster sister along with his title and fortune.

  Although he really did rather wish she’d stop “admiring” things. That was Lady Gwendolyn’s word for what less generous persons might call stealing, the habit she had of picking up anything that took her interest—and carrying it home with her. It had taken the duke a while to realize what was happening, to understand it. But he now found himself dutifully spending the morning after any party visiting his hostess of the previous evening and surreptitiously putting back decorative seashells and crystal paperweights and—just the once—a half dozen silver teaspoons discovered in his aunt’s reticule.

  The duke knew little of any of his family, when you got right down to it. He had spent his youth in the country while his parents spent their time in town. Upon reaching adulthood, he went off to sea—mostly to pique his father, who had chosen the more prestigious Horse Guards in his salad days. In fact, Bramwell had only met his aunt a single time before leaving his commission in the Royal Navy to come home and claim his title after his father had done his damnedest to tarnish the family name straight into the next century.

  While his aunt sniffled and shivered, obviously still somewhat overcome by what he’d been saying to her, His Grace glanced up at the portrait over the mantelpiece, looking, as it were, straight into his own eyes. His father also had been a tall man, his eyes the same piercing blue as Bramwell’s, his hair the same warm brown. In fact, except for the changing fashions since the portrait had been commissioned, and the lack of a similarly mischievous glint around Bramwell’s eyes, the two men could have been cut from the very same bolt of cloth.

  It was almost spooky, that’s what it was.

  The current duke thanked his lucky stars he was not like his father. He thanked God that he was more sober, much more serious, conscientious, and never so scandalous. Only occasionally did he admit to himself that just once—just once—it might be fun to feel some of the same love and lust for life his father had enjoyed up until, and probably including, his last moments on earth.

  “Bramwell?” his aunt inquired, tilting her head as she looked at him in some agitation. “You’re being unusually quiet. Does that mean we’ve finished talking, or just that you hate speaking about this as much as I?”

  He looked at his father’s portrait once more, then shook his head, clearing it. “Forgive me, Aunt. I was only considering your plea, and searching my brain for some alternative. Unfortunately, I have found none. We probably have to air our dirty linen just this one last time, and just between ourselves, before we face the day. Now, what shall we call her? I can think of several names, none of which I believe proper for delicate female ears. Would you care to pick one?”

  Lady Gwendolyn took a deep breath and blew it out through her faintly pudgy nostrils. “Well, I’m sure I most certainly wouldn’t know any of those, Nephew. To make my lips form the late Widow Winstead makes my flesh crawl. And to call her Constance? Oh, no, no, no! That means constant, you know, which just goes to prove that there are more misnamed people in this world than one might suppose.”

  His Grace shrugged, not really much caring what they called the woman, as long as they could discuss her, then forget her forever. “I’m not so sure the creature was misnamed. After all, she was constantly in trouble. Constantly in the way, constantly at my father’s side. Right up until the end, as it were.”

  “Bramwell! It’s not like you to be facetious.” Lady Gwendolyn rolled her eyes. “Oh, the shame of it. I remember the whole thing as if it were yesterday, and not three years past. The loud thump outside the music-room doors as they tumbled off the balcony while in a state of, a state of—Bram? What is that called?”

  “I believe the term you’re searching for, Aunt, is in flagrante delicto, or caught in the act.” A rare smile played about the duke’s mouth. “United in death might be a nicer term, until one remembers that they were both all but jaybird naked at the time.”

  “Don’t remind me! I can still see myself seated beside Lady Buxley, never knowing tragedy was about to strike. I can still hear the ter
rified shout from Reese as he opened the doors to the balcony and mistakenly sent the pair of them tumbling over the railing. The poor man has never been the same since; it was so good of you to keep him on as your own valet. And then there was that drunken Mr. Reginald Stokes throwing open the doors to the patio and all but falling on the bodies. Our first sight of that tangle of black silk and arms and legs. Your mother’s truly bizarre reaction—I still cannot believe that dear, quiet woman actually walked up to my poor brother’s body and kicked him. Twice!”

  Bramwell suppressed another small smile that was rising, unbidden, to his lips. He must be an unnatural son, to be rather enjoying all of this rehashing of what had come to be commonly spoken of as “His Grace’s Tumble from Grace”—the word tumble always being given extra emphasis, of course.

  Because the ninth duke was a sober man, past thirty, and not easily amused. The farces at Covent Garden rarely brought so much as the ghost of a smile to his lips. Unlike his father (or because of him), he was known for his calm and steady disposition. He was respected, admired, and would never think to do anything foolhardy or impulsive just for the lark of it. He kept his wit for his closest, most trusted friends, and it was a dry wit, one that did not lend itself to open displays of hilarity.

  And he certainly never would have made love to his mistress on the balcony of Lady Buxley’s country house while the remainder of the guests were just below them, in the music room.

  Oh, no. There was not the faintest hint of recklessness or buffoonery—or, Heaven forbid, scandal—about the ninth duke of Selbourne.

  And yet, all of his carefully nurtured sobriety to one side, this talk of the eighth duke and the Widow Winstead was all but threatening to reduce him to a round of hearty knee-slapping and embarrassing guffaws.

  “Yes, Aunt,” Bramwell said now, his tongue smarting where he had bitten it to hold back a chuckle. “I can’t imagine why my mother did that. After all, her husband only had been all but openly living with the lady we cannot mention by name for years, with not a care for her feelings in the matter. And then, to get on with the story, once my mother had decided to faint, Mr. Stokes, or so I’ve heard it told, swayed drunkenly where he stood, looked down at the lady we cannot name and said, ‘Damme if those ain’t the best-looking bosoms in all of England, just like good old Cecil always said,’” His Grace ended for his aunt, who had lifted her handkerchief to wipe at her eyes, obviously too distraught to go on.

  “Yes! Yes, that’s precisely how it happened!” Lady Gwendolyn fairly leapt to her feet, frantically waving her hands as if to erase her nephew’s words from the air. He quickly stood as well, being a polite sort, a gentleman raised by the very best of nurses and tutors. But he wished the woman would stop flitting from place to place. He’d had a late night, most of it spent in his study, drinking away his sorrows, and his head wasn’t quite on straight this morning.

  “Oh, the humiliation!” his aunt exclaimed, now wringing her hands. At least she was keeping them where he could see them, which he should consider a blessing. “Thank goodness we had to retire to the country and go into mourning, for I knew I couldn’t show my face in Society again. Not after that! Well, it killed your mother, Bramwell. Simply killed her.”

  His Grace lifted one finely sculpted eyebrow as his aunt went to stand in front of a small table weighed down with objets d’art he’d been told had been his mother’s pride and joy. “Mother died after eating bad fish while on holiday in Hampshire with her lover, Aunt. I scarcely see how the deaths are related. Unless, of course, you think the nameless hussy managed to come back to life as a spoiled carp, and with the express purpose of murdering her paramour’s widow.”

  “Oh, this isn’t getting us anywhere!” Lady Gwendolyn exclaimed, turning around quickly, but not before the duke saw her slip a small china shepherdess into the pocket of her gown. He’d have to remind himself to have Peggy retrieve it later. “I just don’t see why you should have to bring that woman’s child Out. It’s inhuman, that’s what it is. And it will bring back all the old gossip. I shan’t be able to show my face.”

  “I’ll explain it again, Aunt,” Bramwell offered wearily, motioning for her to retake her seat, then gratefully sitting himself down again as well. “The woman whose name we cannot mention and my father were lovers for almost four years, whether we like it or not. The Wid—the Woman—was far from a penniless widow. Far from it. But she put a great deal of dependence on my father’s financial advice. And, while she didn’t see fit to name him as her daughter’s guardian—a blessing for which I go down on my knees nightly, as that duty would have fallen to me upon his death—she did make him promise to bring the girl Out, present her at Court if possible, get her a voucher for Almack’s, etc.”

  Aunt Gwendolyn sniffed rather indelicately. “She could have done those things herself, had she lived. After all, the child is legitimate enough.” She leaned forward, her cheeks pale. “Dear Lord! She is legitimate, Nephew, isn’t she?”

  “Oh, there’s no doubt of that. The child is Godfrey Winstead’s, and her lineage quite impeccable if not overly impressive. Her mother’s reputation, however, was and is not the sort that would do her daughter any good, no matter how much of a dowry there might be—and I understand it is considerable. Mistressing, if done right, seems to pay very well, in case you ever decide to take up the trade.”

  “Nephew, please!”

  “I’m sorry. I believe I’m still a little overcome, even though my solicitor first showed me the papers more than a fortnight ago, and apprised me of my responsibilities in the matter. Now, to continue. Her mother being either alive or quite dead, the daughter needed a suitable sponsor. Someone unimpeachable, someone with a great deal of social power even if he was a bit of a loose screw. In short, a person like my father.”

  “Hrruumph!” Lady Gwendolyn snorted, obviously not feeling quite in charity with her late brother at the moment.

  “Yes, well,” Bramwell said, liking his aunt very much. “So, while this woman, this Edith Farraday, is the child’s guardian, it is left to me, as my father’s heir, to live up to his agreement—his written, legally witnessed agreement, I might add—to sponsor the daughter for the Season. The woman may have had round heels, but she was crafty. She knew a duke would give her daughter an entrée into Society that she and her sorry reputation never could. Also, as my solicitor has reminded me, it would be an insult to my father’s memory to renege on his written promise.”

  “No one could insult Cecil’s memory more than he did by rolling off Lady Buxley’s balcony while stuck to that horrid woman,” Lady Gwendolyn said with another sniff. But she then straightened her shoulders like a good soldier, obviously remembering that she was a lady. “Well, I suppose there is nothing else for it then, is there? The die is cast, the deed is done, and we shall have to pay the consequences. The girl arrives this afternoon, is that what you said?”

  “Just after luncheon, if I’ve calculated the drive in from Wimbledon correctly. I’ve already ordered bedchambers prepared for both the girl and Mrs. Farraday.”

  “Do you think she’s much like her mother? You never saw the woman, did you—being away at sea while your father was running amuck. What if she resembles the mother, in face, in manner? What will we do then? Perhaps you know of some armorer who can fashion a chastity belt for the chit? Unless she’s fat as a house, of course, or homely as a stump, or has one of those strange gaps between her front teeth and whistles when she speaks. You silly gentlemen look only for outer beauty, you know, never caring a whit about what’s inside. However, that being the case, if she is anything like the mother, Nephew, I fear we are in for a siege. Have you prepared dear Isadora?”

  “Isadora? Why, of course I have, Aunt,” Bramwell said, noticing that his neckcloth had grown rather annoyingly tight at the mention of his fiancée’s name. “She’s being the best of good sports about the whole unpleasant situation, and even offered to help me outfit the child and prepare her for the Season. Her name i
s Sophie, by the way. Sophie Winstead.”

  “Sophie,” Aunt Gwendolyn repeated, rolling the name around her mouth, over her tongue. “I rather like that. But I won’t like her, Nephew. Not one little bit. I’ve already made up my mind to that!”

  The girl entered the foyer just as Bramwell was passing through on his way to—well, he had to have been going somewhere, undoubtedly to do something at least vaguely important. Not that he could remember his destination now, as he stood stock still and stared at her, his brain turned to jelly.

  Her nose was small, pert.

  Her eyes, below well-defined, arched brows, were a winsome brown, childlike in their innocence, engaging in their brightness, intriguing in their tip-tilted outer corners and lush, thick black lashes. And enchantingly, bewitchingly wicked when she smiled.

  She was smiling now.

  There was a single, small brown mole, a beauty mark many would say, perched just at the upper curve of her right cheekbone. A man could spend a week worshiping that beauty mark—a lifetime.

  Bramwell sucked in a breath and realized that the girl was enveloped in the mingled, tantalizing scents of spring, and sunshine, and fresh air, and, faintly, of freshly sliced lemons. His gut involuntarily tightened as he silently called himself several extraordinarily unflattering kinds of a fool.

  But he didn’t stop looking, making his inventory. He couldn’t. No more than he could will himself not to breathe in yet another sweet, tantalizing wave of spring and fresh lemons.