The Scoundrel Duke of her Heart by Violet Hamers

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Bloody hell!” Nicholas hissed when he arrived at White’s and found Ernest lounging in the billiard room.

“You look like you rode hell for leather to get here,” Ernest drawled, turning his liquor glass continuously so the amber liquid swirled.

“Your note sounded urgent.”

“No, it did not.”

“Nicholas,” he began to quote the message he received, “Meet me at White’s. It is urgent.”

“Oh, did I put that in there?” he asked, looking innocent.

“Yes, and the messenger said it was for Jenny.”

Ernest passed a hand over his brow. “I supposed I made a mistake.”

Something was not right with his cousin and it caused him great concern. There were few people that Nicholas dared to care about and Ernest was one of them. “What is this about, Ernest?”

Ernest stood, drink in hand. “This place is getting crowded.”

They left the billiard room and found a salon with only a gentleman sitting in a chair near the window, seemingly lost in his thoughts as he drank. “Is this place quiet enough for you?” Nicholas asked.

“It is perfect.” Ernest sat down and propped his feet on a center table, crossing them at the ankles. To anyone that did not know him, he presented the image of insouciance.

“I heard you were at my house earlier.”

“I was and I wish I had not chosen today to call. Persephone is…” He shook his head. “Her machinations have extended to me.”

"What has she done this time?" Nicholas asked his cousin.

“She is planning something big. I don’t know what exactly it is but I have an inkling. You already know that she wants to see me leg-shackled. She sends me lists of eligible ladies, many of them from titled families.”

Nicholas chuckled. “Did anyone on the list catch your fancy?”

“No. Some of them are lovely, to be sure, but I’m not going to marry.”

Nicholas raised his hand to call the attention of a waiter. When the man came, he ordered some brandy and sweetmeats. “If you are not going to marry, then how do you intend to get our grandmother to leave you?” he asked.

"I don't know, man.” He rubbed his eyes, looking perturbed for the first time in a long time. “I received a note while I was at Gunter’s with Miss Bexley. She is asking me to join her riding in the park tomorrow afternoon. Since when does she ever go riding?"

Nicholas shrugged, popping a peppermint sweet that had just been brought into his mouth. “Persephone will ride when she wants something.”

He had heard some of her conversation with his wife earlier and he was pleased with how Jenny had stood up to her but he disliked the pressure she was putting on her. There would be no children in this marriage, thus finding a way to get Persephone to leave them was important.

Perhaps he could work with Ernest on that. “Why don’t you want to marry?” Nicholas asked.

"Come now, Nicholas, we both know I cannot give up my way of life for any woman in this world. My freedom is life." Ernest downed the rest of his liquor before asking for ale.

Nicholas did not believe his freedom was what was preventing him from marrying. There was something else. "Marriage is not bad.”

Ernest quickly took his feet off the center table and sat up. "No. Not you, too," he said. "I can bear her pushing Daphne at me at every given opportunity but having you think marriage is good for me feels like a betrayal."

"Daphne, eh?” Nicholas leaned forward, suddenly interested in his cousin’s budding relationship with Daphne. “I see you are already using her Christian name."

"Are you really doing this to me, Nicholas? I have lost Jenny’s loyalty and now I am losing yours."

“Jenny’s loyalty?” Nicholas quirked a brow.

“She is involved in the scheme to get me married. Now, I cannot begin to tell you how much that breaks my heart.”

"Daphne is her friend. If she thinks you are pursuing her friend and will make a good match, then she will encourage her to welcome your suit,” Nicholas returned.

"You don’t understand me. Your wife is aboard this scheme along with the old crone."

Nicholas was quiet for a moment. He knew his grandmother and Jenny got along on occasion but he never would have guessed they would work together on something like this. Ernest seemed sure but Nicholas still had doubts. "It is quite unlikely that they would work together to get you married. Not unless—"

Nicholas cut himself off as he recalled the dowager’s opera invitation; how healthy she had appeared the following afternoon when they had called upon her. If she indeed had been sick the evening prior, she would have looked it. Could she be—?

“Your Grace? The Duke of Seaton?”

An attendant of the establishment was standing with a missive in his hand when Nicholas looked up. “Yes?”

“This arrived for you.” He preferred the missive.

Nicholas accepted it, rummaging through his pocket for some coin to be delivered to the post boy that must be waiting outside as was customary, but the attendant declared, "The boy is gone, Your Grace."

"The post boy?" Nicholas asked, surprised.

"It was no post boy, Your Grace. The fellow looked like one of the vagrant children in the neighborhood. He seemed in a bit of a hurry, too."

That struck Nicholas as odd. "Very well. Thank you.” He dismissed the attendant. Messengers never passed an opportunity to make some extra coin. The missive was sealed with plain sealing wax and there was no return address. Nicholas unfolded it and scanned it, noting the fine penmanship that judging by the punctilious strokes could only belong to a woman.

Your Grace,

Some truths may be forgotten by you but will never be lost to those it has harmed. We do not begrudge you your newfound happiness but know that what you have done in the past will certainly surface in your present. Be prepared.

Sincerely,

An old acquaintance.

The missive was brief, but the cryptic message alluding to his past and the mention of a forgotten truth and how it could change the present cast a bleak cloud over his mood, and a hundred different questions sprang to his mind. “What is it? You look like you received a letter from a ghost.”

“It is nothing. I should go.”

“Doesn’t seem like it.” Ignoring Ernest’s remark, Nicholas stood to leave.

* * *

As Jenny quietly nibbled on her toast and cast furtive glances at her husband who sat across from her at the round breakfast table, she thought about how he had not been himself since his return to the house yesterday.

His current preoccupancy appeared to be more than just an effort to avoid her. He had contrived to spend as little time with her as possible since that dreadful conversation but this was more. Something was happening beneath the surface. It was clear that she was not the reason he put up tall walls to shield himself.

Asking him what was in his mind last night over dinner had given her very poor yield and although she was tempted to ask him this morning, she supposed the outcome would be the same; he would likely dismiss her again.

She carefully spread a generous amount of blueberry jam on a slice of toast and placed it on his plate. He gave her a surprised look. “You have not been eating. Coffee alone will not sustain you until luncheon.”

“Thank you,” he murmured, picking up the toast and biting into it.

Regarding him right then, she felt as if he was silently making an effort to reach out to her but was being hindered by something. Perhaps that hindrance was the very thing that had brought on his current predicament.

"Your grandmother has invited me to go riding with her later today," Jenny announced. "Would you like to join us?" She asked in the hopes that he would accept it as a means of diversion. It could do him some good.

"You go on. I have accounts to reconcile. I will see you at dinner." He folded the newspaper he had been occupying himself with and pushed to his feet, tucking the paper underneath his arm.

Jenny opened her mouth to speak but no sound came out. She did not know what to say. With a sigh, Jenny reached for her overly sweet coffee. When she had woken that morning, it had been with a hankering for something sweet. “Bentley,” she called, finishing her coffee. “Have you learned anything new about my rocks?”

“No, Your Grace, we have still been unable to find them.”

“That is unfortunate,” she said, trying to not sound as disappointed as she was feeling. Perhaps she would have to reconcile herself to the fact that they were lost and she would have to begin collecting them all over again.

In mid-afternoon, Daphne met Jenny to wait for the dowager so they could depart together. In her invitation, she had stressed the importance of Daphne joining them for their planned day out in town which left Jenny guessing the dowager’s plans. She suspected it was about the match they were making.

The dowager arrived in her carriage and when Jenny asked why she was not riding, she said she did not fancy riding that day. “Should we get some sweet ice before we go to the park?” Jenny asked.

“I don’t see why not. It is a particularly warm day and some ice would be nice.”

The trip to the tea shop was short and on their way to the park, the dowager inclined her head, looking Jenny over questioningly. “I must say that I am quite surprised by the portion of sweet ice you had. You are not very fond of sweet things, Jennifer.”

It was one of the few times she deigned to call Jenny by her Christian name. She knew the direction the question was heading in and she decided to stop it immediately. “I do, on occasion.”

“And what occasion would that be?” she pressed.

Her cravings had brought her some disappointment, for it heralded her courses. If things had been different between her and Nicholas, she would have anticipated the absence of her courses. Now, it only reminded her of how bleak her marriage would be without children, and that reminder would come every month. “Living with Nicholas is changing me,” she said.

“As well it should.”

Disappointed she might be, but giving up was not an option. If she had even the slightest power to change things, she would use that power. She could not allow the course of her life to be determined by anyone but herself. As Daphne had said, men had a language and all she needed to do was learn it and take advantage of it.

I will get my husband,she silently vowed. However long it takes.

They met Ernest at the park and the dowager’s plan immediately became apparent. "Hello Ernest," the dowager greeted with cheer. "Are you here alone?"

Ernest's features creased in perplexity. "I thought you said to meet you at—" His grandmother dropped her cane with a loud clatter.

“Oh, do help an old lady with her cane, will you?” she said with a small twist of her lips. Ernest dismounted and picked up the cane for her. Then she looped her arm through his and began to walk with him, ignoring his protests.

The history of Hyde Park was not what Jenny expected to receive on this trip as the dowager compared the present state of the park to its former glory, making Jenny think that time and nature had done them a great favor with the changes. Daphne, however, seemed genuinely interested and she received the dowager’s lessons with much alacrity, questions, and opinions of her own.

"So, are we expected to feel grateful for something we neither asked for nor care about?" Ernest was clearly as bored by his grandmother's choice of subject of conversation as Jenny was.

"My point here, Ernest," the dowager said, "is that we never appreciate what is right before our eyes until it is too late. I for one see the park in a different light now that I have lived more than half of my life. But of course, the park is just a mere example, insignificant in comparison to the good fortunes some people are adamant to run away from." Her gaze traveled meaningfully from him to Daphne who had now grown suddenly pensive.

"These fortunes you speak of are subjective," Ernest argued. He must have gathered the hidden meaning in her words and gaze.

The dowager pursed her lips for a moment and as she was about to speak, her body convulsed and she began to cough violently, gasping for breath.