A Duke in Need of a Wife Read online

  She rolled her head from side to side. ‘It’s all very well you saying that now. But who’s going to listen to what you have to say?’

  ‘Everyone,’ he said with perfect assurance. ‘Because I am the head of the committee.’

  ‘You are?’ She gazed up at him in disbelief.

  ‘Yes,’ he assured her. ‘I am the Duke of Theakstone.’

  Chapter Two

  ‘And you say the man in question is Viscount Norborough,’ said Oliver. ‘You are certain of that?’

  Perceval, his secretary, opened the document case he’d brought with him into the study, riffled through the contents and withdrew a slim ledger.

  ‘The tenants of Number Six Theakstone Crescent,’ he said, holding out the relevant entry so that Oliver could see it, ‘are Lord and Lady Norborough, their niece, Miss Underwood, sundry servants and a dog. They took up tenancy on June the first on a three-month lease.’

  Oliver leaned back in his chair, frowning as he recalled the rough way the uncle had manhandled his pretty young niece away from the scene.

  He started tapping one finger on the arm of his chair. He should have insisted she stay put, until she’d received medical attention.

  But then Dr Cochrane had been too busy with Mrs Pagett to have spared time for Miss Underwood.

  And he’d heard mention of an aunt. That lady had probably done all that was necessary for the minor cuts and bruises Miss Underwood had sustained.

  Wouldn’t she?

  ‘What do we know of these Norboroughs, Perceval?’

  ‘Their principal estate lies in Derbyshire. Lady Norborough is the oldest sister of the Earl of Tadcaster. The—’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t mean that. I mean, what of their character? Their habits? Their history?’

  ‘I shall look into it, Your Grace,’ said Perceval smoothly.

  It wasn’t good enough. Oh, Perceval would dig and dig until he’d unearthed every last secret the couple might ever have attempted to conceal. But it would take time. And Miss Underwood might be suffering who knew what right now.

  ‘It need not be a priority, Perceval. You have your hands full with the investigation into the cause of last night’s accident.’

  They’d already visited the scene of the fire, hoping that in daylight they would be able to determine what had caused the painstakingly constructed display to explode.

  Though he knew nothing of fuses or gunpowder, the men who’d set it all up certainly did and were all equally puzzled by how it could have gone so spectacularly wrong.

  ‘No evidence left,’ one of them had said gloomily. ‘Ashes, is all.’

  ‘Evidence?’ He’d pounced on that word, and all that it implied, with a frisson of disquiet. ‘Are you saying you think some crime took place here?’

  ‘Sabotage,’ one of the other workmen had stated. ‘Must have been.’

  ‘Or carelessness,’ Perceval had muttered, so that nobody but Oliver could possibly have heard. ‘Or drunkenness. Or incompetence.’

  Well, whatever the cause, Perceval would get to the bottom of it.

  ‘In the meantime,’ he decided, ‘I shall call upon Miss Underwood.’ He could not rest easy until he’d seen with his own eyes that she had suffered no lasting ill effects from the incident. And it wasn’t because she was pretty, as far as he’d been able to judge from the glow of the burning scaffolding. It was because of her bravery in running towards a woman whose clothes had caught fire, when everyone else had been fleeing in the most cowardly, selfish manner. And the compassion she’d shown in kneeling down and holding the burned woman’s hand. And her disregard for the woman’s social station when she’d so selflessly donated her own cloak to conceal Mrs Pagett’s limbs, even though doing so had meant he’d been able to catch a glimpse of a shapely lower leg through her own ripped skirts.

  Perceval tucked the ledger back in his folder and extracted Oliver’s diary. ‘You are attending an extraordinary meeting of the Committee to Celebrate the Peace with France, tomorrow at five.’

  ‘And Marine View is on my way. Efficient as ever, Perceval. I need only set out half an hour sooner.’

  ‘I shall make a note of it, Your Grace,’ said Perceval, licking the end of his pencil.

  * * *

  ‘The Duke of Theakstone,’ Babbage intoned from the doorway.

  ‘Duke of Theakstone? Are you sure?’ Aunt Agnes frowned at the butler who’d come with them from Nettleton Manor. ‘I wasn’t aware we knew any dukes. Ned? Do we? Know this duke?’

  Uncle Ned lowered his newspaper. ‘Theakstone? Ah. Come to think of it, he’s our landlord. Probably come about some problem over the lease, or something of that nature. Show him to the study, Babbage, and I will attend him there.’

  Babbage cleared his throat apologetically. ‘His Grace gave me to believe he wished to speak to Miss Sofia, my lord.’

  Uncle Ned and Aunt Agnes both turned to gape at her. It was Uncle Ned who recovered first. ‘Nonsense! Must be some mistake. Sofia don’t know any dukes. Keep too close a watch on her, don’t you, Agnes? Where would she have met him? Eh?’

  ‘Nowhere,’ said Aunt Agnes decisively. ‘I can assure you of that.’

  And so could Sofia, if he’d bothered to ask her. But that was not his way. Sofia was not, as he was so fond of saying, his niece. She was pretty sure he didn’t begrudge her house room. It was just that he held the firm conviction that raising girl children was a woman’s work. He’d said so, the very first day she’d reached Nettleton Manor, bedraggled and woebegone and half-sure they, too, were going to pass her on to yet another set of strangers. It had been the first time he and Aunt Agnes had discussed her as though she wasn’t even in the room. In the years that followed, they’d fallen into the habit of doing it on what felt like a regular basis.

  Babbage cleared his throat, reminding them all, tactfully, that they were keeping a duke kicking his heels in the hallway. Not that she could account for a man claiming to be a duke turning up and asking after her. As far as she was aware, she’d never met a duke in her life.

  ‘Yes, yes, show him in here, then,’ said Uncle Ned impatiently. ‘Must be some mistake. Get it cleared up in a trice, I dare say. Ah, good morning,’ he said, tossing his newspaper aside and getting to his feet to greet the man who strolled in. As though he owned the place. Which was what he was claiming, though he couldn’t possibly. For this was no duke. This was the waiter from the evening of the fireworks that had gone wrong.

  The waiter nodded to her uncle, then made straight for her, his ferocious brows lowering into an expression of concern.

  ‘Your poor face,’ he said, stretching out a hand as though he would have stroked her black eye, only withdrawing it at the very last moment, as though suddenly recollecting his manners.

  But she felt as though he’d touched her all the same. Which gave her a very odd feeling. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had looked as though they had wanted to touch her with affection. Or concern. Certainly not Aunt Agnes. On first seeing Sofia, she’d shuddered with revulsion before sending her off to be stripped and scrubbed clean by a very junior housemaid. And had held her at arm’s length ever since.

  ‘Try to remember you are a lady born,’ was her most frequent refrain. Which had swiftly supplanted her first maxim: ‘You are in England now and must act accordingly.’

  Although last night, after seeing Sofia’s ruined gown and not seeing Betty’s cloak, she’d bombarded Sofia with just about her entire arsenal of verbal weaponry. And this morning, when she’d arrived at the breakfast table sporting a black eye, far from reaching out to her the way this man had just done, she’d raised her hand to her own brow. ‘Just like your father,’ she’d moaned. ‘Never happier than when he was neck deep in mischief.’

  Which was most unfair. Sofia had worked so hard to become a Proper English Young Lady that nowadays everyone
within ten miles of Nettleton Manor thought she was a dead bore.

  ‘Has your niece,’ said the waiter who was masquerading as a duke, ‘received medical attention since the night of the bonfire?’ He rounded on her uncle, looking distinctly annoyed.

  ‘It is only a few bruises and scratches, nothing more,’ said Aunt Agnes in self-defence.

  He then raised one of those eyebrows towards her aunt in a way that would have shrivelled Sofia, had it been directed at her.

  For a moment, Sofia thought about telling Aunt Agnes that there was no need to quail under the force of those eyebrows. They might look lethal, but they adorned the forehead of a mere waiter. Not a duke.

  However, it wasn’t often that anyone took her part against her uncle and aunt. And so she remained silent while Aunt Agnes flushed and began to stammer excuses.

  ‘She sees a doctor regularly. She is here for her health, after all. For the sea bathing.’

  ‘Her health?’ His voice dripped with such disdain even Sofia could see how he could pass for a duke. ‘Then what was she doing out at night, in the chill air?’

  ‘It’s all moonshine, the notion that Sofia is invalidish,’ broke in Uncle Ned. ‘This trip to the seaside is all down to my wife’s brother putting a lot of ridiculous ideas into their heads.’

  Sofia blushed and hung her head, since Uncle Ned was closer to stating the truth than he knew. And she still felt a bit guilty about the way her Uncle Barty had manipulated them into bringing her here.

  ‘What you need,’ he’d said, the last time he’d been over to visit her, ‘is to get away from this devilish dull backwater and meet some people other than rustics. Go about a bit. Attend some dances. That will put the roses back into your cheeks,’ he’d prophesied. And then he’d proceeded to harangue his sister for neglecting Sofia to such good effect that they’d all decamped to the fashionable seaside town of Burslem Bay, to see if a course of sea bathing might help restore her appetite, so that she’d regain the weight she’d lost over winter.

  ‘Now, Ned, that isn’t fair,’ said Aunt Agnes. ‘Poor Sofia was wasting away...’

  Uncle Ned snorted. ‘You wouldn’t have dreamed of spending all this money on a cottage by the sea if your pestilential brother hadn’t started throwing his weight around.’

  ‘But he is as much her guardian as either of us, Ned. Of course he thinks he has a say in her welfare...’

  Sofia was beginning to curl up with embarrassment. It was bad enough when they argued about her as if she wasn’t there. But to do so in front of a stranger, as well?

  The so-called Duke gave the bickering couple another look of disdain, before sauntering across the room and taking the chair next to hers.

  ‘You must wish to know how Mrs Pagett is faring,’ he said.

  ‘Mrs Pagett?’ Lord, but her voice had come out all squeaky. But then he was a bit overwhelming, up close. He exuded so much confidence and vitality.

  Just as if he really was a duke.

  ‘The woman whose aid you went to when her dress caught fire.’

  ‘Oh, yes, thank you! How is she? Did you find a doctor for her—?’

  ‘Sofia, really,’ her aunt interrupted, roused from her quarrel with Uncle Ned by the sound of Sofia actually conducting a conversation which she was not supervising. ‘Remember your manners. Please forgive her, Your Grace. I am sure she does not mean to be so impertinent, peppering you with questions like that.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said the waiter-Duke. ‘She is merely expressing a very feminine curiosity and concern for someone whose unfortunate accident has clearly shocked her very much.’

  Sofia promptly decided she liked him, no matter whether he was a waiter or a duke, or something else entirely. For nobody, apart from Uncle Barty on the rare occasions he could be bothered to visit, had ever defended her from one of her aunt’s criticisms, not to her face like that. Not in all the years she’d been living under her roof. The locals had all, without exception, expressed sympathy upon hearing that Lady Norborough had taken in the orphaned offspring of her scapegrace younger brother. And prophesied that she’d have her hands full taming the result of such a scandalous match as he’d made.

  Having delivered his set-down, the waiter who claimed to be a duke turned back to Sofia. ‘My personal physician is overseeing her treatment. He thought it best to install a nurse in her home, for day-to-day care. He informs me that her injuries are not so severe as you might suppose, given the spectacle she made when her gown caught fire. The damage was confined mostly to her clothes and the lower part of her legs, particularly her right leg. And her hands when she tried to beat out the flames. There is some blistering about the face and the loss of some hair, but I am informed it will grow back. Her hair, that is.’

  Sofia shuddered. ‘Oh, how awful. The poor woman. But thank goodness you got to her so quickly.’

  He dipped his head in acknowledgement of the part he’d played in Mrs Pagett’s drama.

  ‘How I wish... I mean, is there anything I can do?’

  ‘Of course there is nothing you can do, you foolish girl,’ said Aunt Agnes. ‘You are not a doctor. I cannot think how you came to be mixed up in such a squalid scene in the first place.’

  Nor had Sofia, to start with. But as she’d lain in bed the night before, she’d remembered how her papa had always used to say she was full of pluck. That nobody nowadays thought so stemmed, she suspected, from the horrible events surrounding her papa’s death. By the time she reached Nettleton Manor, she’d been so relieved to finally find refuge that she’d done her utmost to fit in. It had taken a couple of years before she’d been able to stop worrying that her newly discovered family were not going to throw her out if she displeased them. And by then, the habit of behaving with extreme caution had taken deep root.

  She still swam, though, and climbed trees, whenever she was sure nobody would find out. And last night, when she’d seen that lady in such awful trouble, she hadn’t stopped to think about the consequences. She’d just run to help.

  While all this was flashing through Sofia’s mind, the Duke had turned to give Aunt Agnes a really blistering look. ‘Your niece appears to have a very compassionate nature, Lady Norborough. I am sure her enquiries as to what she could do extended only to visiting to offer comfort, or something of that sort.’ He turned back to Sofia. ‘Am I correct?’

  ‘Well, no... I mean, I am sure I would not be permitted to actually visit,’ she said with regret, darting an anxious glance in her aunt’s direction. Visiting the lower orders was one of the things she said Sofia was to avoid at all costs, considering the company she’d kept in her earliest years. ‘But I did wonder if I could contribute, financially, towards her care...’

  ‘Now just a minute...’ This time it was Uncle Ned who was raising an objection.

  ‘It does your niece credit,’ said the Duke. ‘However, in this instance, Miss Underwood,’ he said, turning to her and gentling his tone, ‘the care of Mrs Pagett will be charged to the committee who organised the event. After all, they were responsible for the safety of all those who attended the supper and fireworks. Whatever it was that caused about two-thirds of them to go off simultaneously, instead of one at a time, there can be no doubt about that.’

  He got to his feet and looked at her aunt and uncle for a moment or two in the kind of silence that had them all holding their breath.

  ‘I shall call to take your niece for an airing in my carriage, tomorrow. Be ready,’ he said, turning to her, ‘at three.’

  Chapter Three

  For the second time in as many days, Oliver drew his curricle up outside Miss Underwood’s lodgings, wondering why on earth he was altering his busy schedule to squeeze in a meeting with her. He’d had no intention of doing more than assuring himself she was recovering properly from the incident at the fireworks when he’d called the day before. He certainly hadn’t intended to invi
te her out for a drive.

  But then her aunt and uncle had talked over her so dismissively. Which was so unjust, given the bravery she’d shown in rushing to Mrs Pagett’s help.

  He hadn’t liked the way her uncle had dragged her away that night.

  And he hadn’t liked the way they’d both berated her for behaviour that to him seemed compassionate and caring.

  That was what had prompted him to invite her to drive with him this afternoon—the chance to detach her from their overbearing, disapproving presence, so that he could talk to her freely. About Mrs Pagett.

  It had nothing to do with the flare of attraction he’d felt when he’d seen her sitting in that drawing room, in full sunlight. He met dozens of pretty girls all the time. She was nothing out of the ordinary. It was just that he had a preference for slim brunettes with brown eyes, that was all. The fact that he’d seen her legs through her ripped gown had probably stoked the more primitive side of his nature, too. He had no need to worry that he was developing an unhealthy interest in her.

  In fact, by the time he’d driven her through the town and along the seafront he was bound to have discovered some flaw in her personality which would enable him to relegate her to the status of passing fancy.

  He tossed the reins to his groom, pressing his lips into a firm, determined line. The girl he’d seen at the fireworks display probably didn’t exist outside his imagination, anyway. She certainly hadn’t put in an appearance in her aunt’s drawing room. That girl had been all polite propriety and butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth missishness. Even when he’d spoken to her directly, he’d gained the impression she wanted to shrink into the sofa cushions and disappear from view. If he’d come across that Miss Underwood at a ball or a supper party, he wouldn’t have spared her a second thought. He certainly wouldn’t have drifted off to sleep with a vision of her, crouching on the ground, holding Mrs Pagett’s hand in his mind. Or gone on to dream about joining her on the ground and giving in to the temptation to run his hand through the rips in her skirts to find the silken skin of her calves.