A Most Suitable Duchess Read online

  A Most Suitable Duchess

  Patricia Bray

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 2001 by Patricia Bray

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email [email protected]

  First Diversion Books edition February 2015

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-615-2

  Also from Patricia Bray

  The Irish Earl

  Lord Freddie's First

  An Unlikely Alliance

  The Wrong Mr. Wright

  One

  “Your Grace?”

  Marcus Heywood heard the voice, but continued his perusal of the newspaper. An article on the proposed agricultural reform laws had caught his eye, but he shook his head in disbelief as he read on. Hadn’t those fools in Parliament done enough harm already with their ill-advised tariffs and agricultural reform laws? The solution was fewer restrictive laws, not more. Any landholder would tell them the same.

  “Your Grace?” the voice repeated, a trifle more loudly.

  Marcus looked up at the man, and then glanced around at the room. Save for himself and the clerk, the small antechamber was empty. He flushed as he realized the clerk was speaking to him.

  The clerk caught his eye. “Your Grace, Mr. Forsythe has returned and will see you now.”

  Marcus rose, hastily discarding the newspaper, and hoped that he did not look as foolish as he felt. Your Grace. He could not get used to the new mode of address. For the past month he had half expected that he would wake up, and discover that this had all been a bizarre dream. But now the truth was beginning to sink in, and with it the realization that he was indeed the new Duke of Torringford.

  The clerk led him down a short hall, then opened a door, and bowed him through.

  “His Grace, the Duke of Torringford,” the clerk announced.

  Marcus winced.

  A middle-aged gentleman rose from his seat behind a mahogany desk, and bowed. “Your Grace, it is an honor to make your acquaintance, despite these regrettable circumstances. May I offer you my condolences on the death of your cousin, the former duke?”

  “I am pleased to make your acquaintance as well,” Marcus said. “And as for the duke, he was a distant cousin indeed. I am certain you knew him far better than I.”

  Marcus would not pretend to any great sorrow. Indeed, he had encountered the former Duke of Torringford only twice in his life. The first time had been at a cousin’s wedding, the second time at the Newmarket races. Neither encounter had been particularly memorable. The gulf between the great duke and his distant country cousins had been too wide, and neither side had the least inclination to attempt to bridge the gap.

  Marcus took a seat, and then Mr. Forsythe resumed his own seat behind the desk. He withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket, and began to mop his forehead.

  “Your message indicated some matter of great urgency?” Marcus prompted.

  “Indeed,” the solicitor said, his double chins wobbling as he nodded his head vigorously. “A matter of some urgency, and discretion, which is why I wished to speak with you myself.”

  A month ago, Marcus had been at Greenfields, supervising the spring planting. The solicitor’s letter informing him that he was the new Duke of Torringford had seemed a strange jest. He had felt no urgency in following up on the matter. His inheritance could wait, the spring planting could not.

  The solicitor’s second letter had been more forceful, requesting his presence in Edinburgh as soon as possible. Marcus had ignored that, too, not yet ready to face his changed circumstances. But the third letter had insisted that he come at once, hinting at dire consequences should he fail to appear.

  “In his final years, the duke was much burdened by his losses. It was common knowledge that he was increasingly concerned about securing the succession, and that the traditions of Torringford would be carried on after his death.”

  Marcus nodded. “He had more than his share of misfortunes,” he said.

  The old duke had had six sons, which should have been enough for any man. One had died in infancy, but five had survived to adulthood. The succession should have been well secured. But the oldest had died of a fever, and another had died in the colonial war. Two had married late in life, and died childless. Only the youngest had married and produced a son of his own.

  “You must understand that the duke was, er, concerned when he realized his grandson George Wallace was to inherit the title.”

  Concerned. More likely the old duke had been furious when he realized his title was to fall to such a wastrel.

  George Wallace was only two years Marcus’s junior, the same age as his brother Reginald. The three of them had briefly been at school together, before George found himself expelled from Oxbridge, as he had been expelled from so many other schools before.

  Even then, George had made himself unpopular, insisting that the other boys treat him with the deference due a future duke, alternating between promising great favors or making dire threats, all to be fulfilled when he came into his title. Marcus, like most of his friends, had found George insufferable, and had avoided his company. It seemed time had done little to change George Wallace’s character.

  And all George’s promises had come to naught, for he had been killed this spring in a coaching accident. If he had lived another month he would have been the new duke, but instead that title had landed on Marcus’s most unlikely shoulders.

  “May I ask when you were born?”

  “June. June the sixth.”

  “And the year?”

  “I fail to see what this has to do…”

  “Please indulge me.”

  “Seventeen hundred and eighty-five.” In less than a month he would turn thirty.

  “Good, there is still time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Last year the duke rewrote his will. The original ducal estate is entailed, but the rest of his properties and personal fortune were not, and their disposition was at his discretion.”

  The solicitor’s eyes met his, and then looked away. His nervousness was plain to read. So the duke’s fortune was not entailed, was it? No doubt the solicitor feared telling him that the duke had decided to leave it all to a former mistress, or perhaps the son of an old friend. Anything, rather than risk seeing it fall into the hands of George Wallace.

  No doubt Mr. Forsythe expected that Marcus would be angry, but instead he felt relieved. He had never wanted a grand title, or the responsibilities that came with the possession of great wealth. He had seen this inheritance as a burden, and would be well pleased to find out that the burden had passed to another.

  “And how did he choose to dispose of his wealth?” Marcus asked softly.

  Mr. Forsythe clasped his hands together. “The will is written so that the fortune passes to the next Duke of Torringford, provided that he is married by the time he reaches his thirtieth birthday.”

  Marcus stared at the fire, a half-filled brandy glass in his hand, while Mrs. Porter cleared away the remains of their dinner. At least Reginald had done justice to the excellent pheasant, but his own plates were largely untouched. Once, the innkeeper’s wife would have clucked at him over such behavior, urging him to eat a proper meal
, but now she confined herself to a mere frown.

  “Will there be aught else, Your Worships?” Mrs. Porter asked.

  “No. Thank you, Mrs. Porter,” he said, rousing himself from his reverie.

  She gave a half curtsy and departed.

  Reginald rose from the table, bringing with him the brandy decanter. He refilled his brother’s glass and then his own, before taking a seat in the chair opposite Marcus.

  “You scarcely said three words at dinner,” Reginald began. “And you never did answer my questions about your visit to the solicitor.”

  Marcus lifted his gaze to his brother’s face, taking comfort in the honest concern he read there. At least Reginald still regarded him as he always had.

  “Your Worships,” he repeated with a grim chuckle. “Even the Porters stand on ceremony with me now. Me, whom they have known for twenty years, ever since Father first brought me to Edinburgh. Yet now it is as if I am a stranger to them.”

  Reginald shrugged. “What did you expect? Noblemen are scarce in this quarter, and I’ll wager they have never played host to a duke. Once the novelty wears off, they will resume their old ways.”

  “I suppose,” he said. But inside he was not so certain. Becoming a peer of the realm was not something he could lightly set aside. He feared very much that his days of quiet living and unpretentiousness were over.

  The solicitor Forsythe, the law clerk, the Porters, even his neighbors and acquaintances all seemed to expect him to behave differently, now that he was a duke. And yet inside he felt no different. He had not changed. It was they who had changed, or rather, who had changed their expectations of him.

  It was as if he were no longer a man, but rather a thing. A ducal title made of flesh. It made him uneasy, but he knew it was not the real reason for his despondency. He was focusing on trifles, because he did not want to think about the solicitor’s unwelcome revelations.

  But he could play coward no longer. It was time to tell his brother the truth.

  He took a sip of the imported French brandy, barely tasting it. Which was a shame, as he suspected Mr. Porter had gone to some trouble to acquire a beverage worthy of his ducal guest.

  “It seems our late cousin altered his will once he learned George Wallace was to inherit. He wished to encourage George to mend his reckless ways, and to carry on the line,” Marcus began.

  “And?” Reginald prompted.

  “He could do nothing about the title, or the entailed property. But his personal fortune, and the majority of the estates, will pass to the heir only if he is married by his thirtieth birthday.”

  “Damn,” Reginald said softly.

  “Indeed,” Marcus agreed.

  There was a moment of silence.

  “I assume you told the solicitor to go hang? You don’t need the money, after all. And you were never one to let anyone else dictate your course.”

  His brother knew him well.

  “I would have, but there is a problem. It seems that George borrowed heavily against his expectations. Debts that I am honor-bound to discharge.” He took another sip of brandy. “Over a hundred thousand pounds, actually.”

  Reginald gulped his own brandy, and swallowed hard. “What fool would lend such a sum to a rakehell like George?”

  “Does it matter?”

  His brother shook his head.

  “There is no way to pay them, of course,” Marcus said. “Even if I sold Greenfields, the hounds, everything I own, it would still not serve.”

  And to think that only a month ago he had thought himself a prosperous gentleman, master of Greenfields, and the five thousand a year that it brought in under his management. Yet George Wallace had gambled away twenty times such a sum. He could not imagine how anyone could be so reckless.

  “So what will you do?”

  “Marry,” Marcus said, giving a bitter laugh. “What else can I do? I had Forsythe send the will over to McGregor, but I expect he will confirm that all is in order.”

  Mr. Forsythe had been furious when he realized that Marcus wanted his own solicitor to review the misbegotten will. No doubt his anger owed less to the implied slur on his competence than it did to the realization that his firm was unlikely to continue its lucrative relationship with the new Duke of Torringford.

  “Have you a bride in mind? Or did the solicitor have one picked out for you?” Reginald asked.

  “Alice Dunne will do as well as any other,” Marcus said, without any real enthusiasm. Alice was an amiable woman, but he had never felt any romantic attraction to her, or to any of her younger sisters for that matter. Still she came from good stock, and their families had been neighbors for decades.

  Alice had never shown him any sign of partiality before, treating him with the same affectionate friendship that she showed toward Reginald and the other gentlemen of the county. And yet, at the age of three-and-twenty her prospects for marriage were dwindling. Perhaps she would be grateful for this chance.

  “Alice is a fine girl,” Reginald said. “But somehow I never pictured her as a duchess.”

  “Nor myself as a duke,” Marcus countered. “We will both have to grow into our roles.”

  “I am sorry,” Reginald said, reaching over to grasp his forearm.

  Marcus nodded, grateful beyond measure for his brother’s sympathy. He knew few others would share it. Most would count him lucky. Even after paying off George Wallace’s debts, he would still be extremely wealthy, with a title that ensured him entry to the highest levels of society. And Miss Alice Dunne would make a good wife. Of course she would.

  They sat in companionable silence, moving only to refill their glasses or to add another log to the fire when it burned low.

  “What you really need is a nobleman’s daughter,” Reginald said suddenly, interrupting his train of thought. “Someone bred to the role of great lady, comfortable in society and able to manage a grand household. A wife like that could show you the way to go on.”

  “And where do you suggest I find such a paragon? Remember, I have less than a month to find her, woo her, and wed her.”

  “Advertise. As you would for a prize broodmare, or the new kennel master,” Reginald suggested.

  His brother rose and crossed over to the writing desk that occupied the corner of the sitting room. Lifting the top, he withdrew a piece of parchment, and then sorted through the quills till he found one to his satisfaction.

  Marcus watched in bemusement as Reginald hastily scribbled a few lines.

  “How does this sound? ‘Seeking young, unattached gentlewoman of excellent breeding and character, for position as Duchess of Torringford. Candidate must be experienced in household management. Serious inquires only.’”

  Marcus grinned. “And what about her appearance? Shall you condemn me to marriage with a hag?”

  “Very well,” Reginald said. “I’ll add ‘comely’ to the list of virtues.”

  “‘Intelligent’ and ‘well spoken,’ would be nice. I might as well be particular in my requirements.”

  “Of course. You are a duke now, after all,” Reginald said.

  They looked at each other and began to laugh, soft chuckles that grew into full-throated laughter, as the absurdity of the situation struck them anew. It was better to laugh than to despair.

  “A shame that matters are not so simple,” Marcus said, when he finally caught his breath.

  “When was life ever simple?” Reginald asked, a slight slur to his words.

  Marcus was aware that they had both had more to drink than was wise. Especially him, for he needed to make an early start on the morrow.

  “I will retire now. It is an early start for me,” Marcus said.

  “To Greenfields?”

  “Yes, and then to see Mr. Dunne and ask for his daughter’s hand.”

  “I will come with you,” Reginald said.

  “No,” Marcus said swiftly. He loved his brother, but did not want his company. This was something he had to do alone. “I need you to stay her
e. Make certain the notice is sent to the Gazette, asking all interested in the position of kennel master to send their particulars to McGregor. You can interview them and make your choice.”

  “Me?”

  “Who else? You will have to manage Greenfields in my absence, and show the new master his duties. I am afraid I will be kept busy. There are the duke’s properties to be inspected, and no doubt Alice will expect a wedding trip.”

  He swallowed dryly at that last thought. Just what would Alice expect from him?

  “Stay here a week, as we had planned,” Marcus said. “Enjoy yourself. By the time you return to Greenfields we will have made arrangements for the wedding.”

  He was fortunate indeed that he lived in Scotland. In England such a hasty wedding would have required a special license or a mad dash for Gretna Green, or one of the other Scottish border towns.

  Here in Scotland the old marriage laws still held. All Marcus and his intended had to do was declare the fact of their marriage in the presence of witnesses. For that their families would be more than sufficient. And then he and his new bride would journey to Edinburgh, and complete the formalities necessary to secure his inheritance.

  “Marcus, if there is anything I can do—”

  “I know,” Marcus said. “Thank you. But this is something only I can do.”

  Two

  The pages of the Edinburgh Courant crackled as James Hastings turned them. “Lackwitted fool,” he muttered as some article caught his eye.

  Penelope Hastings gazed at her older brother and bit back a sigh. James was in a foul mood this morning. She had known it from the moment he joined her in the dining room, giving her only a curt greeting before turning his attention to his tea and the newspapers laid next to his plate.

  Accustomed to her brother’s moods, she had ignored his incivility, and had instead calmly taken her own repast, enjoying the hearty porridge and freshly made scones. Now as she sipped her chocolate, she wondered whether she should leave her brother in peace or try to discover what was troubling him.