The Duke Goes Down by Sophie Jordan

As Imogen peered out the window and into the yard, her grip on the filmy edge of the sheer curtains tightened until her knuckles ached. A fingernail poked a hole through the fabric, rending it, but she couldn’t be bothered to care.

Edgar Fernsby was here. He had dared to come here.

Blast it.She released the curtain and stared through the crack, scrutinizing Edgar as he stepped into the midmorning light. She searched for the differences in his countenance, if any, that time had wrought.

He had not changed very much . . . and yet he had.

His skin was pallid, and the luster was gone from his eyes. She could detect that even from her window.

He lifted his hat and smoothed a pale hand over his head. His hair had thinned and rested somewhat limply against the shape of his skull.

She knew without touching that those strands would feel wilting and not at all as they had once beneath her fingers, silky rich and thick.

Mr. and Mrs. Fernsby stood side by side, a fine pair in their lavish attire—and something seized inside her. A wash of panic. A bitter taste coating her mouth. A tremoring up and down her body.

“No,” she whispered, stepping back from the window.

She did not want them here. She did not want to be here. She could not do this. She could not face them. Not yet.

Panicked, she darted in multiple directions in her small bedchamber, like an ant seeking escape from the rain, before returning back to the window and looking down again.

They were gone. They had advanced on the front door. Any moment they would be inside her home. A knock sounded from the bowels of the house. Soon Mrs. Garry would let them inside and she would call up for Imogen to come down.

No, no, no, no.

Yanking the curtains wide, she pulled open the window, more grateful than ever for the wall of ivy covering the front of the vicarage. Hiking her skirts up to her thighs, she straddled the windowsill, casting aside any sense of modesty. These were desperate times. She would not endure an entire day with Winifred and Edgar. She would have to face them eventually, at dinner, but she could avoid them during the day. For now, eventually could wait.

A glance down confirmed her cousins had already entered the house.

It was now or never.

As though to hammer that home, Papa called to her from belowstairs, “Imogen!”

She stretched one slippered toe until she found a trellis hole, reminding and encouraging herself that she had done this before—when she was a child.

Her pulse jumped against her throat and she hurried her descent, carefully staying to the right of the front door, but to the left of the parlor’s wide mullioned windows. It would not do at all to be spotted climbing down the trellis like a hoyden escaping her cage. Even if she was.

She did not give herself time to consider the madness of her actions. Papa would simply think she had slipped from the house to complete an errand without them noticing. Mrs. Garry might wonder how she had not noticed Imogen departing, but she would never believe she had done anything so rash as to slip out her window.

Dropping down on the ground, she shook her skirts back into place and then dusted her hands on the fabric, carefully wading through the front flowers, trying not to crush them as she stepped up beside the window.

She was careful to remain out of sight as she peeked into the parlor.

Papa was standing at the hearth beside Mr. Fernsby and Winnie was seated on the sofa, speaking in a lofty manner to Molly as she tugged off her velvet gloves. Molly was their occasional maid who helped out Mrs. Garry a few days a week. She looked a little apprehensive as she faced the full force of Winifred.

Imogen could not hear her cousin’s words but she could surmise she was instructing the girl on some matter or another. Perhaps instructions for their bedchamber, or the tea service yet to be served to them. Winnie had always excelled at bossing others around.

“That was quite the most singular way I’ve ever observed someone exit a house.”

Imogen spun around with a gasp to find Mr. Butler standing not two yards behind her, his head cocked at a curious angle as he studied her.

“Do you never announce yourself?” she hissed, hopping clear of the window, again taking care not to stomp on her flowers.

He first surprised her in the Blankenship gardens, then in her very own home, and now here again. She had never seen so much of him before, day after day after day. The man needed to wear a bell around his neck.

“I thought I just did.”

She cast a worried glance over her shoulder, fearful she might be detected by the occupants inside her house, then stepped hurriedly forward, determined to put as much distance between herself and her cousins as possible.

Oh, she would have to face them. She knew that. But it didn’t have to be now. And it didn’t have to be like this. If she could minimize all time spent with them until they departed, the better for her. It would mean less time pasting a pretend smile on her face.

Mr. Butler dogged her heels as she circled the vicarage and opened the side gate that cut through the vicarage cemetery.

It wasn’t as morbid as one might think a cemetery to be. It was full of blooming rosebushes and flowers, and a beautiful old oak tree sprawled at the center of the graveyard. As a child, when she first moved here, she had climbed that tree and sat high in its branches, looking out in awe at the vicarage and the surrounding fields and trees, the myriad rooftops in the nearby village, and the distant smoking chimney at the Henry farm.

The cemetery grounds were very green and well tended. Fresh vases of colorful blooms sat at several of the graves. Papa saw to that. Well, rather, he once saw to that when he had remembered to do such things. Now she remembered to do it, and the task fell to her along with the rest of her increasing duties.

The gate had a longer than usual delay before it clanged after her, and she sent yet another worried glance over her shoulder to confirm she wasn’t being followed by Fernsby—an irrational fear perhaps, but she felt the flash of it, nonetheless.

Indeed, she was not being followed by Edgar.

Mr. Butler was there, passing through the gate after her, his handsome expression cast into grim lines.

“Are you stalking me?” she demanded.

“As you are fleeing and not stopping for a much needed discussion, then yes. I am following you. Indeed, I am.”

She felt herself scowl. “Go away.”

The arrival of her cousins made fresh the humiliation she had thought she buried years ago. She needed to find someplace to lick her wounds in private and compose herself.

Mr. Butler’s presence did not help in that endeavor.

She had scarcely spent any time in his company whilst he was a duke, but now that he was plain and simple Mr. Butler he was everywhere. She could not escape him. As soon as she had the thought another intruded. There was nothing plain or simple about this man.

He had kissed her and she had kissed him back and she had never felt as alive as she had in that moment when his mouth had locked on hers.

Shaking her head, she was determined to put that behind her. It was an aberration. A thing that had simply happened in a flight of temper. It didn’t mean anything.

She wove a path between tombstones and stone crosses and crypts. “Why won’t you leave me be?” She felt an odd mixture of dread and elation at his persistent attention. It baffled her and she clearly was not in a state to make sense of it.

“I want to know everything. No more evasions. No more lies.”

Everything?All her truths? That gave her a jolt of alarm. The pulse at her neck gave a skittering leap.

Because the truth was this: Kissing Peregrine Butler had brought forth feelings and sensations she had never felt before. Not even when she was ten and eight and believed herself in love. Even besotted as she had been all those years ago, a kiss from Edgar had never made her feel as splendid as she had felt with Peregrine Butler and that was dangerous.

Longing was dangerous. Especially for a firmly committed spinster who had no hope of developing anything lasting with the likes of Mr. Butler. He was after one type of female. And she was not after anyone.

She could certainly never tell him all of that.

Shaking her head as though that would perfectly clear it, she demanded, “What do you mean?”

“I want to know all the bloody rumors you’ve been spreading. I don’t want to wake up in the morning to any more surprises.”

He was here because of that. Of course. He knew of the latest rumor. She winced.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be? Charming unsuspecting heiresses?” And their papas. Yes. She’d prefer he do that if it meant he left her alone. She felt too vulnerable right now . . . too raw for this.

“I would love to be doing that very thing, however, you’ve made that a difficult endeavor.” He sounded angry now.

She winced again. She had put a bit of a crimp in his agenda. She should not have said that thing to Mrs. Hathaway. She knew that now. In truth, she’d known it the night she did it. In her bed after the Blankenship ball, staring into the dark, the truth, the wrongness of her actions, had found her.

Shaking her head, she reached the back gate to the cemetery and passed through it, every stride taking her farther and farther from her house and the wretched Mr. Fernsby. The knot in her chest gradually eased.

She lengthened her strides for the line of trees ahead. They loomed like the Promised Land.

“Miss Bates, would you please stop for a moment?” he bit out in exasperation behind her.

She kept going. She spent a good amount of her time on foot. Rarely did she take a horse or carriage anywhere when on her own. Not a day passed when she did not walk from one end of this shire to the other end. The fact that he could keep up with her brisk pace illustrated that he was fit in his own right.

“You realize you have no coat on? The day is rather chill.”

She glanced down at herself, realizing he spoke true. There was a bit of chill to the air, but she could not summon the will to care. She would not go back home for anything. At least not until much later. Not until she must.

“Where are you going?” he pressed.

She shook her head slightly. Away.

Away was all that mattered.

Why had they come? They’d never done so before and she knew from Winnie’s occasional letters that they had vacationed in Scotland before. Never before had they stopped in Shropshire en route north. She’d assumed it was Edgar’s good sense keeping them away. Given their history, it was the prudent thing to do. This visit was not prudent at all.

It was only two nights. At least according to Winnie’s letter. Perhaps less than that once—if—they realized Papa was not himself. Prolonged social engagements could be awkward with Papa. He grew overtired and repeated himself, forgetting what had already been spoken. For that reason Imogen was selective about what invitations they accepted and scarce was the occasion when they hosted overnight guests.

Larger, short-lived events like the Blankenships’ ball where Papa was no single individual’s sole focus worked best. She didn’t want it bandied all over the shire that her father was incapacitated in any way. The new duke could arrive any day and word could reach his ears that Papa was less than whole. On his whim, they could be ousted. Then where would they go? What would become of them?

“Miss Bates!” Her pace did not slow. “Imogen!”

She halted at the sound of her Christian name on his lips. It was a first. She didn’t realize he even knew her name.

She turned slowly, staring at him.

He held his arms wide at his side, and she realized he had eschewed a few articles of clothing himself. He was without his vest and cravat and merely wore a shirt of white lawn beneath his jacket that opened in a V at his throat, revealing an enticing glimpse of very firm-looking skin. Such a rebuff to propriety felt a lapse even for him.

“Yes?” she asked with impressive equanimity.

He shook his head, and then glanced around them. “What are you doing out here?”

Various answers barreled through her mind.

Running away. Hiding. Shirking my duties as daughter and hostess.

All true, but none she would admit to him. That would only lead to more questions, and answers, if revealed, that would make her appear vulnerable.

She turned back around and resumed walking. “I’m not doing anything. Merely taking a stroll. What did you want? Why were you calling at my house?” she asked even as she knew the answer. He was here because he’d discovered what she had said to Mrs. Hathaway.

He fell in beside her. “Where are you off to in such haste? And why did you flee your house through a second-floor window?”

“I departed through my bedroom window so I did not have to take the stairs.” It was both the truth and unrevealing.

“Why?”

She opened her mouth and closed it, determining she did not have to explain herself to him. Then, for some reason she did not understand, she volunteered, “We have houseguests.”

“And that requires escaping through your window?”

“For these particular guests, yes.”

“I am intrigued. Who are your guests?”

“My cousin and her husband.”

“And they are so very terrible you must flee through windows?”

“I felt compelled.”

He nodded. “Ever intriguing.”

He could well remain intrigued. She was not about to unveil that sordid bit of history to him. “What did you need from me, Mr. Butler?” A redundant question perhaps. She knew what he wanted of her, but she did not know how to undo what she had started.

His gray eyes smoked over. “You know what I need of you. This new rumor of yours is spreading through the village like brushfire. Do you know how I learned of it?”

“I haven’t any notion.”

“My mother.”

She winced. Oh dear.

He continued, “My own mother confronted me. Woke me abruptly this morning screeching to the heavens that I have the pox.”

“Oh.” She felt almost amused imagining that scene, visualizing the very grand duchess confronting her son in such a manner.

He was not so amused.

“Oh,” he echoed, and then made a sound of disgust. “How many rumors did you start, woman? I thought we had talked over them all. You made no mention of this one last night. What else need I be braced for?”

“Who says I’m the one who started it?” she asked, even though the question rang lamely to her own ears. Right now she felt raw and vulnerable. Prey cornered. By her cousin, Winifred, by Edgar . . . and now by Peregrine Butler. Survival demanded she defend herself.

“And who else is out there starting rumors of my person?”

She shrugged. “I cannot claim to know.”

They entered the woodland, leaving the fields behind them.

Her family collected their firewood from these woods. She used to accompany Papa and Mrs. Garry’s nephew, Lewis, to accumulate wood for their supply, but now it was just Imogen and Lewis. Every couple of months, they took the cart and cut down what they needed.

“Don’t play coy with me, Miss Bates. We know it’s you. Are there more rumors I need to be girded for?”

She shook her head, appreciating that this was an admission of sorts that she had fabricated the pox rumor. She accepted that. It would be her last untruth. Truly. She was finished with this scheming.

He exhaled. “Well. Good. I’m glad to hear that.” He winced. “I mean not good. My reputation is virtually ruined.” His gaze narrowed on her. “But that is what you set out to achieve, is it not?”

She nodded. “It is. I thought it important to protect the ladies of this community.”

“Protect them? From me?” He stepped closer and the breadth of his chest struck her as so very broad and solid looking. Not merely in appearance though. She knew he was solid because she had felt that chest. Against her. Against her palms. Crushing her breasts. “Because I am such a despicable person?”

“Not . . . despicable,” she replied.

“Oh? What am I then that makes me so very unsavory?”

“You’re insincere,” she snapped, disliking being pressed on the matter.

“Insincere?” he echoed. “That is my greatest fault?”

He lifted a hand and she flinched.

He hesitated, awaiting her tacit consent, holding his hand midair. She released a breath and he continued, bringing his hand toward her face and wrapping his fingers around a tendril that had fallen loose from her pins. She knew her hair must be an untidy mess given her recent exertions.

His touch was gentle on her hair as he tucked it behind her ear. She shivered as his fingertips grazed the tender skin below her ear. Goosebumps broke out all over her body and she shivered.

“Have I been insincere with you?” His fingers lingered, tracing her earlobe.

His deep voice rumbled between them, rubbing along her skin like a caress. She supposed not. He had been many things with her, but not insincere. Her mind flashed back to their time in the garden and the kiss and the way his mouth had felt over hers.

Her gaze dropped to his lips, recalling the taste of him, the texture, the pressure of his mouth and tongue and teeth. Nothing about that encounter had felt insincere. It felt as real and as honest as anything that had ever happened to her.

“Have you nothing to say?” That appealing mouth of his curled into a slow, languid grin.

She moistened her lips, but still did not speak.

He continued, “Astonishing. I did not think it possible to silence the garrulous Miss Bates.”

She found her voice and said, “Your reputation is not ruined.” Even though she did not fully believe that herself, she needed something to say and it felt like she should try to reassure him at the very least.

“Oh, but I think my prospects in all of Shropshire are officially dashed, much thanks to you.” The annoyance was back in his voice—if it had ever left him at all.

“Can a man’s reputation ever truly be lost?” She shook her head, grabbing a fistful of her skirts and starting up a steep incline. He kept stride with her. “It does not work that way for your sex. In my experience, nothing can happen so grievously to a man’s name that it can’t be repaired.”

She’d seen it time and time again. Men pardoned for infractions simply by the grace of their gender. The same tolerance could not be applied to females. It was the same everywhere. She had seen it even in her beloved Shropshire. Women were not even granted full rights under British law. That alone spoke volumes on the inequitable treatment of women.

“Spoken like a true bluestocking.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. A woman needs keen intelligence to secure herself even a fraction of the rights men have for simply being born.”

“You hardly seem a woman subject to oppression. There are not many women your age with independence and the respect of her community . . . and no pressure to be a wife and mother.”

“I suppose I am fortunate,” she agreed lightly. “At least as long as my father lives I am fortunate. My well-being merely depends on his ability to conquer death, after all.” She forced her eyes wide, blinking up at him. “Perhaps he will live forever, and I will have nothing to fret over.”

Mr. Butler’s expression looked decidedly less confident at that.

With a smug lift of her eyebrow, she pushed on ahead.

He followed, trailing after her through the sudden thickening of brush until they broke out into a small watering hole. He made a small sound at the lovely little spot that she had discovered years ago on a walk.

“What is this place?” he marveled.

“My pond.”

“Your pond?”

“Indeed. It’s my special place.”

“But it’s on my land.” He didn’t know the place, but he knew it was on Penning property.

“No,” she said slowly. “It’s on Penning land. Not yours.”

He released a breath, looking both chastened and annoyed. “Very well. Trust you to correct me on that matter. This is Penning land. Not my land. The point being, how can it be your special place?”

She shrugged. “Am I not permitted to think of a place as special to me? You can’t toss a rock without hitting Penning land.” She moved, climbing up a very large slab of granite that jutted like a shelf from the pond. “The very house I live in was built by the seventh Duke of Penning, your great-grandfather. Almost everything around here is dependent on Penning.” She sat down, very correctly arranging her skirts over her legs.

He dropped his long length down beside her.

She surveyed him beneath her lashes, and then she heard herself asking, “You miss it?” She was not sure why she cared. She should not be bothered to care.

He bent his knee and propped his arm on it. “Miss it? What precisely?” He glanced out at the placid waters thoughtfully. Not so much as a ripple marred the serene surface. “Let’s see. The land? The house? The myriad servants? The deep pockets? The friends? The parties? The ladies eager to line up for courtship?” He sent her a derisive look. “I could go on, but it would only bore you.” He snorted and nodded. “Of course I miss it. I would be a fool not to.”

“But you’ll settle for marriage to either of the Blankenship girls or the baroness’s daughter?” she asked in an almost perfectly normal voice. “That will make you happy?” She didn’t know why she was asking after his happiness. It had never mattered to her before. She was simply curious now, she supposed. No more than that surely.

“Happier than now.” His eyes glittered as he leaned back on one elbow. “I would have readily accepted a match with either of the Misses Blankenship or the baroness’s daughter, once she is officially out. But now I should be so fortunate to gain a dinner invitation from either of those families, much less a blessing in marriage.”

“My fault,” she acknowledged.

“The rumors have done what you intended them to do.” He stared at her intently, and she struggled to defend herself against the accusation in his eyes. In his mind, she was clearly a manipulative little witch. “Tell me. Why? Why are you really spreading such stories?”

The question asked so softly, so intensely, unnerved her.

He saw through her.

He did not accept her earlier explanation. He believed she was motivated by more than her need to protect the ladies of Shropshire.

And he would not be wrong. She had other reasons.

Because you would need to put a bag over her personality.

He had crushed her as a child with his words. That sting had stayed with her all these years. She let it influence her. She had not considered that he might have changed.

His unexpected apology had lessened her ire, however—just as it had caught her by surprise.

She could not answer him, though. Not without revealing more of herself than she wanted. She did not want him to know just how much he had hurt her.

But he stared at her intently, waiting for an answer, so she clung to the only explanation she had ever given, even if she was not so convinced anymore. “These girls deserve better.”

He absorbed that for a moment. “And you’re responsible for seeing to the happy marriages of every girl in the shire? That is quite an undertaking.”

“If I can help a girl avert a sad fate, then why should I not?” she snapped.

“And I’m that sad fate?” His eyes widened and then he tossed back his head in a rough, mirthless laugh. “Don’t be reticent. Tell me how you really feel, Miss Bates.”

“You’re only after what they can bring you.”

“And you don’t think ladies look at me and evaluate what I might bring them? They weigh the advantages for themselves. Does not everyone contemplate marriage in terms of benefit?”

She stared at him in frustration. “Just because something is the status quo, does not make it right.”

He shook his head at her in seeming awe. “You are quite the crusader, Miss Bates? You think to change the world?” The mocking glint in his eyes told her he did not mean that as a compliment—nor did he believe that she could change the way things were.

“Perhaps just this small corner of it,” she shot back. “It’s my duty to look after the people in this village . . . especially the vulnerable.”

“I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you that I’ve fallen into that vulnerable category you are so very concerned about. Where’s your compassion for me? Will you not look after me?” His voice lowered and softened a bit at that last question and a small shiver rushed through her.

“You?” She forced a caustic laugh and fought against that delicious shiver. “I don’t think you are in requirement of it.”

“And I don’t suppose it has occurred to you that I might offer something in marriage.”

“You? What would that be? You still live with your mother and it’s my understanding that is not by choice.”

The lines on either side of his mouth tightened and she knew she’d hit a nerve. “You are well apprised of my situation. You are correct. I have no property. No wealth. No rank. And yes, I currently reside with my mother. But there are other things I can still offer.”

“What, pray tell, can you then offer a wife?” She tried to hold a smile, but there was something in his face that made the curve of her lips falter and fade. The air between them felt positively alive, tight and crackling like the air before a storm.

“Pleasure.”