The Duchess Diaries: The Bridal Pleasures Series Read online

  He was too tired and conflicted tonight to solve anyone’s problems. He had gone out earlier in the evening certain he would make an arrangement with a courtesan. Instead, he’d ended up mired in scandal.

  If there was an exit from the situation that would not damage Charlotte’s name, he could not see it.

  God, he wished he did not despise cowardice.

  He would be forced to choose between dishonor or marriage, which was quite an accomplishment on Charlotte’s part, considering the string of women who had schemed to become his wife.

  He had faced numerous opponents on the dueling field without qualms. Was this any different? A man could not call himself brave if he fought only the battles he chose.

  As he contemplated his future he heard the door open and the approach of footsteps across the floor. It could only be his butler, perhaps checking to see whether he was still alive.

  He didn’t bother to open his eyes. He hoped to fall asleep and awaken the next day to discover that tonight had been only a dream. “Leave everything as it is, Shelby. You can tidy to your heart’s content in the morning.”

  A spume of cold water struck his face. He jolted upright, managing to dodge the ceramic pitcher that hit the headboard of his bed. In that moment of surprise he decided that Gabrielle did not have the makings of a courtesan at all.

  A Gorgon, perhaps. But not a woman with whom a sane man would feel comfortable confiding in or sharing his bed. He rolled to his side and onto the floor, holding the bed curtains to his chest as a buffer.

  The washstand bowl hit the bedpost. Gabrielle glanced around, presumably looking for another weapon to hurl. He dropped the curtains and made a dash for the door before she launched her shoes at his back.

  “You liar! You schoolboy! I can’t believe that you left my company for that…I don’t even know what she is!”

  Gideon reached the top of the stairs. His entire staff had assembled below in their nightclothes.

  “All these women in one night,” his housekeeper said, and obviously didn’t mind that he could hear her. “It isn’t natural. It’s unhealthful. I can’t be party to this much longer. What a sorrow if young Lady Sarah had witnessed this.”

  Gabrielle ran sobbing around him to fly down the stairs. “He’s a swine!” she said to the servants who parted to allow her passage. “The man ruined my reputation! I’ll never command a top price again.”

  “Good riddance,” Shelby muttered, shuffling to close the door after her. “That’s another one who won’t be coming back in a hurry.”

  Harriet arrived at the academy early the next morning to take breakfast with Charlotte. They sat alone sipping tea until it turned too cold to enjoy.

  Harriet put down her cup. “I don’t know what to say. It was my fault. All of it.”

  Charlotte sighed. “It wasn’t. And I admit I wanted to see what his house looked like inside.”

  “For a man alleged to live a decadent life he had nice furnishings. I didn’t see any evidence of the riotous orgies he’s said to hold.”

  “I don’t know whether that means he’s been maligned or has an attentive staff who tidy up the damage as he goes about it.”

  “It could mean he isn’t as bad as he’s supposed to be.”

  “Well, he had French letters in his drawers,” Charlotte said in an inaudible voice.

  Harriet stared across the table. “What did you say?”

  “French letters. You know, the articles that a man wears when he’s about to indulge in a carnal act.”

  Harriet frowned at her. “In the first place, you’re not talking to the vicar’s wife, Charlotte. I know what they are. Condoms.”

  “Lower your voice.”

  “I’m whispering. Besides, all that means is that he’s a more conscientious lover than most men.”

  “The fact that he had them in his drawer suggests to me that he is loose with his affections.”

  Harriet choked back a laugh.

  Charlotte regarded her in irritation. “Scoundrels amuse you?”

  “No. You do. The possession of those ‘articles’ could mean any number of things.”

  “Really?” Charlotte looked past Harriet with feigned indifference.

  “Really. It could mean he’s practical and particular about where he puts his—”

  “Harriet!”

  “Or it could mean he likes to be well prepared in the event, you know…in the event he finds a certain lady hiding in his bedchamber when he comes home.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “Or perhaps he’s hopeful that the right woman, and we’re talking about you again, is waiting for him to come home.”

  “Don’t. I won’t delude myself anymore.”

  “Some men carry articles everywhere they go,” Harriet continued, warming to the subject. “To church in case fortune smiles on them after the sermon. To the club in case a lady is waiting in the coach to rendezvous. I’ve known gents who bring them along when they attend a ball. Did you notice whether he had any when he asked you to dance?”

  “I’m not talking to you anymore,” Charlotte said with a reluctant laugh.

  “You’re too much fun to tease. I’m sorry. But I think in the end that what he has hidden away in his drawers says more good about him than bad.”

  “You’re beginning to sound as if you find him attractive yourself.”

  “Oh, no,” Harriet said, her eyes glittering. “One duke is more than enough to keep me occupied, thank you. In fact, if Griffin were in town I wouldn’t have had the time to get you in all this trouble.”

  “My life is a mess,” Charlotte said morosely.

  Charlotte knew she had committed an unpardonable sin in society’s eyes. She had confessed, not once, but innumerable times, not in a whisper, but on the written page, to experiencing a surfeit of emotion.

  A lady was not allowed to emote. A gentlewoman would bite off her tongue before admitting that she felt such longings. And the feelings she had expressed for the duke…

  She hadn’t merely indulged in a flight of fancy. She had soared on waxen wings straight into the sun, like Icarus of Greek legend.

  She sighed. Perhaps it was overdramatic to compare herself to a Grecian youth who had dropped into the sea after his hopes had melted midflight. But Charlotte had always maintained that mankind would be better off if it took a few moral lessons from mythology. Why should womankind be any different?

  “Charlotte? Are you dreaming again?”

  “I still have to face my family.”

  “And the duke,” Harriet reminded her.

  “He was furious last night,” Charlotte said, drawing a slow breath. “Maybe he will leave London before he’s called to the family trial.”

  “He won’t run,” Harriet said. “A duke is not like other men.”

  “I gathered that,” Charlotte said softly. “That’s the appeal.” After a deep sigh, she continued. “I wouldn’t have chosen to force him into marriage like this, no matter how much I desired him from afar. I’ll admit marriage does sound more exciting than teaching manners for the rest of my life. But even that option will be gone.”

  “You couldn’t have worked at the academy forever. Your brothers have sworn to have you married off before autumn.”

  “I guarantee there won’t be a better match in the candidates they choose for me. But I do want a family,” Charlotte confessed.

  “Then wait until you meet the right man.”

  “I did,” Charlotte said, smiling wistfully. “I’m just not the right woman.”

  “We’ll see what the afternoon brings.”

  Chapter 12

  Charlotte considered it ironic that her first lesson of the day for the undergraduates centered on the three Fates, the goddesses who randomly decided an individual’s destiny. Birth, life, death. It was theirs to enhance or to destroy. The Fates made few concessions to those who appealed for mercy.

  “Is there a lesson that we as ladies of a refined culture can draw
from this? Do any of you think it is possible to change one’s fate?”

  One of the younger girls stood up. “Lady Dalrymple is coming with her sketching club to give her weekly painting class. I just wanted to remind you.”

  Charlotte’s mouth tightened. The last thing she needed was to supervise a group of naughty-minded matrons who delighted in painting nude gentlemen for their Greek deity collection. Charlotte did not believe for an instant that these silver-haired artists created their controversial works of art for the sake of charity alone—although it was true that their rendition of Emma’s husband as Hercules fighting the Nemean lion had sold at auction for an ungodly sum to benefit a hospital.

  Another girl slipped out of her chair. “One cannot change fate and it is arrogant to try. Only the elite class, for example, should rule society.”

  Charlotte glanced at the pale girl fidgeting at the back of the room. She was the most recent charity case rescued from the slums, and she appeared to resent all attempts to educate her. Charlotte had to keep reminding herself that Harriet had been more belligerent when she had been a pupil. And that secretly she had doubted many times that Harriet could ever be civilized.

  “What do you think, Verity?”

  Verity shrugged. “About what?”

  “About the Fates.”

  “I think I’d rather watch old Lady Dalrymple paint rude pictures than listen to this load of rubbish. It’s a waste of me time.”

  “It’s a waste of time to try to teach you anything,” one of the girls murmured.

  Charlotte took a breath. “Why were the Fates sometimes called cruel?”

  Verity stood up and made a mocking curtsy. “They made girls go to school when they could’ve been outside chasing boys.”

  Charlotte stared at her. “What did you say to me?”

  “Girls like boys and not books.”

  “Not necessarily,” Charlotte said, her voice rising. “A decently bred girl seeks the company of young gentlemen only with a chaperone. She does not chase them.”

  “Then why did you get caught last night in the dark with that duke if you weren’t chasing after ’im?”

  Charlotte closed her book, her face flushed with guilt. “Do we believe every word of gossip that we hear?” She held up her hand, forestalling any answers. She was dying to ask how they had heard about last night.

  She glanced past the girls. She thought she detected hoofbeats from outside on the street, the cry of a coachman warning all pedestrians to step aside. Such a dramatic arrival could mean only one thing—the Marquess of Sedgecroft had sent his coach and six to collect her for an official meeting at his house.

  The Fates had not put off deciding her future.

  Would she be banished to the country? Sent back to her family home and three brothers?

  The girls broke into spirited chatter. She listened for the inevitable knock at the door. She stood in benumbed silence until Miss Peppertree, Charlotte’s assistant, flapped into the room like a bird of prey with another schoolmistress trying to follow her.

  “Miss Ames, take the girls upstairs for a few minutes,” she said with the authority of a French general assuming command of an army base.

  “Very well.” Charlotte rapped her knuckles against her book. “Girls! Compose yourselves. I shall say this only once, and the wise will listen: Tomorrow we will continue our studies in Greek mythology. The new subject will be Arachne.”

  “Our what?” Verity interrupted with an impertinent grin.

  Charlotte ground her teeth. “Arachne was the legendary weaver whose tapestry enraged the goddess Pallas Athena.” She stopped, wallowing in a moment of self-pity. “You will be asked to relate Arachne’s fate in your own words. That is all.”

  She fled from the room. Miss Peppertree ran after her, leaving the class in an eruption of feminine giggles and whispering gossip.

  “Miss Boscastle!” Daphne cried. “Miss— Oh, gracious, Charlotte. You will not escape me! I never dreamed you were capable of such…mischief.”

  Mischief. She shivered as Gideon’s dark image flitted through her mind. “How do you know? How did the girls find out? I haven’t even spoken with my family.” Although she knew that it was Grayson’s coach she had heard outside the academy.

  Miss Peppertree herded her into the formal dining room.

  “The girls know.”

  “Yes. I know they know, but I don’t know how they found out so quickly.”

  Miss Peppertree closed the door, set the lock, and darted to the windows to draw the curtains.

  “What on earth are you doing?” Charlotte asked, certain she detected the footsteps of doom in the street.

  “Sssh.” Miss Peppertree put her finger to her lips and then proceeded to the fireplace, motioning repeatedly to the vase that sat upon the mantel.

  “Have you suddenly become a spy or are we playing a pantomime? Because I—”

  She broke off as Miss Peppertree swung around and grabbed her by the hand, whispering, “I put the pieces in there.”

  “Pieces of what? In where?”

  “In the vase that resembles a Grecian urn. You will recall we moved it to this room when one of the girls found a book in the library that mentioned the practice of cremation in ancient Greece.”

  She tugged her hand loose from Daphne’s talonlike grasp. “As I doubt you’ve had occasion to put anyone to rest in the vase, I insist you stop this nonsense.”

  “The broadsheets. I burned them the moment they arrived. Of course, there will be others, and you will have to help me dispose of those as fast as they come.”

  Charlotte put her hand to her temple. “Why don’t I ring for some tea while you have a nice sit-down? Because to be frank, you’re beginning to frighten me.”

  “You should be frightened!” Miss Peppertree exclaimed, and they both glanced around at the imperious pounding against the front door. “Oh, bother. There’s no hiding it. Your scandal was in the papers.” She pulled a footstool to the hearth, hiked up her blue muslin skirt, and reached precariously for the vase.

  Charlotte sprang forward instinctively to wrest it from her hands. Miss Peppertree dropped like a spiderling to the floor. “Do you understand now? I left a snippet intact for you to see.”

  Charlotte swallowed, braced herself for a shock, and peered into the dust-coated depths of the vase. She wrinkled her nose.

  “All this ado about—”

  “—the duke.” Daphne slipped her hand into the vase and withdrew a slip of paper that looked as if it had been meticulously snipped with a pair of scissors. “Read this. And to yourself, please.”

  Charlotte watched in growing exasperation as Miss Peppertree laid out several pieces across the whatnot table. She refrained from pointing out that it would have been easier to have merely saved the entire clipping, but Miss Peppertree did like her drama. The poor woman might lead an uneventful life on the surface. But the vicarious pleasure she took from poking her nose into everyone else’s affairs was altogether different.

  Not that Charlotte was in any position to talk.

  In fact, Charlotte’s imagination put Daphne’s to shame. They did make a pair.

  “There,” Miss Peppertree whispered with a victorious air, stepping away from the table.

  Charlotte heard noises drifting from the entry hall. “Daphne. I know you tend to exaggerate. And so do I. But tell me. Is it really dreadful?”

  “Yes. On this table are the ashes of your reputation.”

  Charlotte looked down at the shreds of paper pieced back together. The boldfaced print blared at her like a coachman’s bugle. It appeared to be a caption from one of George Cruikshank’s caricatures.

  HEAD OF ACADEMY CAUGHT IN THE ACT WITH AMOROUS DUKE! ONE OF THE TON’S MOST DEDICATED BACHELORS TAKES TWO MISTRESSES IN ONE NIGHT!

  “Oh,” Charlotte said, and fell back into a chair, feeling sick. “I think I’m glad I didn’t see the cartoon. No wonder the girls were so agitated this morning.”

  “It
will be a wonder if we have any girls left to worry about once their parents catch wind of this.”

  Charlotte looked up anxiously. “Most people know not to believe these despicable scandal sheets.”

  Miss Peppertree swept the pieces back into one hand, clutching the vase in the other, and returned to the hearth to toss the incriminating remnants onto the coals. “Most people,” she whispered, “sense whether there is any truth to a rumor or not.”

  “Perhaps people will lose interest if a betrothal is announced.” At least she was hoping for such a resolution. Gideon might certainly have another opinion.

  Miss Peppertree climbed atop the stool again to return the vase to its proper place. “I highly doubt that. In fact, I think you will find the opposite is true. A duke ranks just below a prince, as you’re aware. The excitement of his engagement and subsequent marriage would create a stir in society that might mitigate your disgrace until it dies a quiet death.”

  The excitement Gideon would stir in Charlotte’s heart if he married her would live forever.

  “There’s nothing to do for it, Daphne. I have made my bed and now I must lie in it.”

  Miss Peppertree put her hands on her hips. “I hope you realize that you’re not going to be lying in that bed alone.”

  “No,” Charlotte mused. “I suppose I won’t. That is a sacrifice I shall have to make.”

  “Miss Boscastle,” Ogden the butler said from behind the locked door. “The marquess has sent his carriage to collect you.”

  “If I didn’t know you better, I would suspect that you schemed to bring this scandal about.”

  “I didn’t,” Charlotte insisted.

  But she had dreamed of it.

  And sooner or later, Miss Peppertree, if not the entire world, would know exactly how scandalous her daydreams had been.

  “What will happen to the academy?” Miss Peppertree asked, trailing her to the door and then into the hall, where the butler waited in impassive silence. “I won’t be able to find another position—Lady Clipstone won’t hire me to wash her floors if there is any truth to this scandal.”

  “It is not time to abandon ship yet.”

  “Maybe not.” Miss Peppertree’s eyes glittered with tears behind her spectacles. “But it might be time to lash ourselves to the wheel and ride out the storm.”