Читать книгу Compromising The Duke's Daughter - Mary Brendan - Страница 13

Chapter Four

‘You must accompany me to Pall Mall and speak to Lady Regan.’ Dorothea’s small fierce eyes fastened on her niece’s profile. ‘Everybody suspected that more than how the Wolfsons do was occupying the two of you. I fielded questions as best I could, so make sure you tell your papa how I tried to protect you from gossip.’

‘Mr Rockleigh and I also talked about the beggars who stopped our coach,’ Joan offered up one truthful titbit.

‘It’s your duty to come with me to explain yourself.’ Dorothea snorted as a blush spread on Joan’s cheeks. ‘If you colour up, Lady Regan will know you’re guilty of something. And never mention those atrocious vagabonds, I implore you.’ Dorothea’s nose wrinkled in disgust as she fingered the mourning brooch on her shoulder. ‘I thank the Lord that this precious memento of my dear departed husband didn’t fall into the clutches of that avaricious wretch.’

‘It is not avarice, but cold and hunger that makes the poor act so.’

‘You defend them?’ Dorothea barked, eyes popping in shock.

‘No...theft is theft, but I understand how such an environment might corrode a person’s honesty and dignity. I know, too, that the rot could be stopped if the disadvantaged were able to share a few of the things that we take for granted.’ Joan cast a damning eye on her aunt. ‘Helping slum urchins to better themselves through learning to read and write is surely a step in the right direction; I find it inconceivable that any decent person would ignore the need for children to be given a basic education.’

Dorothea gulped indignantly at the pointed reminder of how she’d sat sulking in the vicar’s parlour rather than assist with the lessons that day. ‘Those vile people would have robbed and murdered us but for Mr Rockleigh’s intervention. They should be horsewhipped...every one of them,’ she warbled dramatically. ‘Say nothing about any of it to my friends; they will find it abhorrent to know we came close to such taint.’ Dorothea waggled a cautioning finger. ‘Of course, the dreadful tale of what occurred is bound to circulate eventually now you have told the vicar all about it.’ She sent her niece a blameful glare. ‘So you will come and have some tea with us?’

‘I’m afraid not; I shall go straight home.’

‘You are the most selfish miss!’ Dorothea hissed. ‘Your father will be livid to know you have been consorting with Rockleigh again.’

‘He won’t mind me having a conversation with my brother-in-law’s friend.’ Joan sounded more confident than she felt. ‘Besides, there is no need for Papa to be bothered with any of it.’

‘Had you been with the Rockleigh of old...then I would agree. But the fellow is now in the gutter and you would do well to remember that before accosting him.’

‘I did no such thing!’ Joan protested, although she recalled approaching him rapidly. She settled back into the squabs to stare sightlessly at passing scenery. ‘Would you have recognised Mr Rockleigh had the vicar not told you his identity?’

‘Oh, indeed I would have!’ Dorothea trilled. ‘I got a good look at him this time.’ She studied her niece’s reaction. ‘Such handsome features aren’t disguised by a heathenish tan, are they?’

Joan was saved from finding an answer; she’d suddenly realised that the coach was about to sail past the turning to her home. She rapped on the roof, determined to use her chance to escape.

‘Baldwin’s has in some fine new silk. You will want to choose from the bolts before all the best shades are sold out.’ Dorothea made a last attempt to keep her niece’s company.

Ignoring Dorothea’s angry huff, Joan said farewell, then alighted without waiting for the groom to open the door. Having hopped down, she immediately set off in the direction of Upper Brook Street.

Dorothea’s friends knew that Drew Rockleigh and Luke Wolfson were chums without Joan having to take tea with them and tell them so. The ton also knew that one man lived in luxury while the other... Her train of thought faltered as she realised she had no idea where Rockleigh resided. The idea that he took bed and board in a slum was outlandish considering who he was...or rather who he had been. He didn’t seem unfed...far from it; his strong solid physique spoke of nourishment as well as exercise. Vincent Walters had spoken of high-value purses being won by the victors such as the Squire, as he’d called Rockleigh.

Her aunt’s cronies would have quizzed her mercilessly so they could repeat details of Rockleigh’s disgrace in scandalised whispers. Joan wasn’t privy to his secrets, but if she were, she’d not betray him.

It puzzled Joan why she felt rather protective of a man who exasperated her, mocked her and also alarmed her. But Rockleigh had, not once, but twice now done her a great service. The need to act fairly and return a favour was quite understandable, as her father had recently pointed out. And what else could there be feeding her growing obsession with him?

Preoccupied, Joan entered her home. On looking up, she spotted her stepmother’s maid and some of the other servants hurrying towards the cloakroom laden with garments. Then her darting eyes pounced upon the woman herself. Maude had been tweaking her flattened coiffure into shape in front of a mirror spanning the length of a fancy console table. Packing cases and portmanteaux lined the walls and a convoy of footmen were converging on the vestibule to transport their mistress’s vast amount of luggage upstairs to her chamber.

‘Oh, it’s lovely to have you back and sooner than expected.’ Joan rushed to Maude to give her a hug that was warmly returned.

‘How is Fiona? Is she better now?’ Joan eagerly asked, breaking free of the older woman’s embrace.

‘Your sister is much brighter, my dear, so I decided to get myself from under their feet. The physician has assured Fiona that the queasiness will ease as the babe grows.’ Maude linked arms with her stepdaughter. ‘Come, I am parched and want some tea. Let us sit in the rose salon and have a chat. Then I must snooze for a while and look refreshed for your papa when he gets in.’ She sighed contentedly. ‘I have missed you both, you know. Tobias tells me that Alfred is at White’s and won’t return before we dine so there is plenty of time for us to catch up with all the news.’

‘And how is my lovely little niece?’ Joan asked, removing her bonnet. She ran five tidying fingers through a tumble of dark chestnut curls.

‘Oh, that tot is destined to be a tomboy. Diana likes sticks and stones to play with rather than a doll to dress.’ Maude sounded nostalgic while speaking of her granddaughter. ‘Fiona was the same as a youngster: she would crawl about the garden to catch worms and snails as pets while her little sister behaved prettily.’ The woman shuddered, glancing searchingly over a shoulder. ‘Tobias told me you’d gone for a drive with your aunt,’ she commented as they strolled over marble flags.

‘Dorothea has journeyed on to Pall Mall to browse the emporiums and meet Lady Regan in a teashop.’ Joan sighed. ‘I opted to come home. I cannot abide dawdling about those places just for the latest gossip.’

‘You and Fiona are alike, you know.’ Maude chuckled. ‘My eldest would never shop for new dresses either. It was always Verity who loved to have the seamstresses fluttering around her hem with needles and pins.’

‘I find the idea of being like Fiona very agreeable.’ Joan sounded wistful. Her stepsister was indeed fortunate to have a doting husband and an adorable daughter to cherish plus another little one on the way.

‘She has sent you a letter; it’s in my portmanteau. Fiona spoke about you constantly, asking me this and that and when will you visit. She was disappointed you did not accompany me.’

Joan would have very much liked to see her sister and brother-in-law, but when Maude had left for Essex over a month ago Joan had been suffering with a chill and too unwell to travel.

The refreshment arrived promptly after the two ladies had settled themselves in the rose salon.

‘So what scandals have I missed while away?’ Maude sipped from delicate bone china, her lively eyes displaying her eagerness to have some gossip.

‘Miss Richards has been jilted by her fiancé,’ Joan related after a cursory racking of her brains.

‘That doesn’t surprise me! He was a fortune hunter and has probably got wind of her father’s ship sinking off China.’

‘Has it?’ Joan’s eyes widened. ‘What cruel fate. Who told you of it?’

‘Luke had heard the news on the grapevine, then Fiona told me about another fellow who has been greatly reduced in circumstances. I understand that was entirely his own fault, though.’

Joan put down her cup, then waited till the maid had deposited some cakes and disappeared before asking hesitantly, ‘Was Fiona referring to Drew Rockleigh?’

Maude airily waved a tartlet she’d immediately selected and bitten into. ‘Rockleigh is out of favour and never mentioned. The culprit is another fellow who lost his house on a turn of a card to a professional gambler.’

‘How careless...’ Joan gulped her tea. She wished she’d not mentioned Rockleigh now because she feared her stepmother would pick up the thread of the conversation and she was confused as to how to continue. She was still smarting from his maddening attitude to her earlier. She was also still feeling embarrassed about her unpleasantly haughty response to his provocation. Yet, despite it all, there was within her a restlessness to see him again that was so powerful she felt tempted to fly to the stables, find Pip, then return to the slum and demand answers to the questions bedevilling her.

‘Fiona is aware that her husband’s friend has had a dreadful time of it.’ Maude popped some stray currants into her mouth. ‘Luke refuses to discuss Rockleigh because he is very angry with the ingrate.’ Maude sighed. ‘These men! They will get themselves into scrapes with their bad habits.’

‘He didn’t gamble away his money!’ Joan had immediately leapt to the ingrate’s defence.

‘Did he not?’ Maude sounded surprised. ‘What did he do?’

‘Um...I’m not sure,’ Joan admitted. ‘Papa heard that some business went bad for him.’

Maude helped herself to another cake. ‘I see...but Drew always seemed a devil-may-care charmer to me.’ She arched an eyebrow at Joan. ‘I recall he paid you rather a lot of attention at their wedding reception.’

‘For the short time he attended,’ Joan countered. Fiona and Luke’s wedding breakfast had been a wonderful celebration held in the ballroom that occupied a sizeable amount of the first floor of the Duke of Thornley’s town house. Wistfully Joan recalled Drew looking heartbreakingly handsome that evening. He had asked her to dance, causing fans to stir amongst the ladies present.

But by ten o’clock he had gone. Joan had been piqued enough by his abrupt disappearance to discreetly try to find him. Her search had taken her from the card room to the supper room and then to wander down the stairs. In the vestibule she had heard two dandies, lounging against a marble pillar, laughing that Rockleigh’s mistress had waited over two hours outside for him in a carriage. Joan had melted away into the shadows in a whisper of lemon silk, not wanting those chortling young bucks to spot her. She’d felt a fool, pining for a man who clearly wanted to be elsewhere and had danced with his host’s daughter out of politeness.

And that had been the last time Joan had been in Drew Rockleigh’s company...until very recently.

‘Why is Luke angry with him?’ Joan enquired. According to her sister, Drew had been a true friend to Luke when they were growing up and Luke had been unhappy at home. ‘Is Rockleigh no longer deemed fitting company since my brother-in-law settled down to a staid family life?’ Joan hoped Luke’s loyalty ran deeper than that.

‘Not at all!’ Maude wiped crumbs from her lips with a napkin. ‘Luke wants to be friends. Apparently he offered his chum a loan to get him back on his feet, but Rockleigh flatly refused to have it. Drew is now living like a degenerate, consorting with quite the wrong sort of people. Luke is out of patience with him.’ She frowned. ‘It is inconceivable that somebody would willingly remain in the gutter. It might be all exaggeration.’ Maude’s expression turned optimistic.

‘I fear this time the gossip might not live up to the reality, ma’am,’ Joan said quietly.

‘You know the ins and outs?’ Maude was intrigued enough to push away the tempting plate of tartlets and give her stepdaughter her full attention.

‘I might as well own up, for no doubt Papa will regale you with details of my latest scrape.’

‘Indeed, you must, if you wish to have my assistance in the matter,’ Maude answered with a wink.

Five minutes later when the saga about the beggars and Drew Rockleigh’s heroics had been related, Maude was looking much less amiable.

‘Oh, Joan!’ the woman wailed. ‘I wouldn’t have gone off to Essex for so long if I’d known you’d get embroiled in the vicar’s ragged school. There’s always a price to pay for doing a good deed, as my late husband would say.’ Maude sorrowfully shook her head. ‘I’ve always sanctioned your friendship with the vicar as he is kin of the Finches and I know your late mama liked him. Alfred is sure to remind me of my interference when he gets home.’

‘You know you have my father wrapped about your little finger.’ Joan managed a fraudulent smile, inwardly wincing at having caused yet another person’s upset. She’d not wanted to bring tears to her stepmother’s eyes, but equally she would never regret teaching some slum urchins their letters.

Thus far her stepmother had been her ally. Maude would gently chide her husband over keeping a too-strict rein on his eldest child. Her own daughter, she would remind him, had braved the hazards of travelling hundreds of miles in the seeking of employment and in the end the adventure had enriched Fiona’s life rather than ruining it.

The Duke would listen and nod. He would heed Maude in most things. In this particular case he had no need to humour her though, as there was great truth in her boast that Fiona’s courage had been well rewarded: Joan’s stepsister had travelled to Devon to take up a position as a governess when her life was at a low ebb and instead had fallen straight into the loving arms of her future husband.

‘Oh! That is your father back now.’ Maude had agitatedly gained her feet at the sound of voices in the corridor.

Joan had also heard the Duke’s baritone mingling with her Aunt Dorothea’s shrill treble. She was itching to speak to her father in private to discover why he’d found it necessary to reward Rockleigh with as much as fifty pounds. But now Maude was home husband and wife would want time alone, so Joan would have to wait her turn for an audience with him.

She was wrong on that score. Her father strode into the rose salon with his sister trotting in his wake. ‘Ah, capital to have you home, m’dear,’ he addressed his wife with a fond beam. A moment later Alfred’s beady gaze was turned on his daughter. ‘It seems you and I must have another serious talk, miss,’ he announced.

Over his shoulder Joan could see Dorothea’s fingers nervously plucking at the skirts of her widow’s weeds. So her aunt had blabbed about the encounter with Rockleigh in Hyde Park and had doubtless put her own fantastic interpretation on it.

‘I should like to speak to you, too, Papa,’ Joan replied stoutly.

‘You will have an immediate opportunity to do so, miss, never fear,’ the Duke retorted. He turned a softer gaze on his wife. ‘Why do you not retire for a while, Maude, and I’ll join you shortly?’ He raised her fingers to his lips in tender salute. ‘Off you go, now. There is no point in bringing you in on this half the way through. I’ll explain it in private, for deuce knows there are bits that stretch the bounds of credibility and might need oft repeating.’

Maude glanced at her stepdaughter, seeking a small signal that Joan had no need of her support. Satisfied by a smile, the Duchess greeted her sister-in-law by clasping Dorothea’s thin hands before quitting the room.

‘I should like permission to retire, too, Alfred,’ Dorothea piped up the moment her niece’s fierce grey gaze veered her way. ‘My headache is worse. I have missed an appointment with Lady Regan because of it.’

Joan guessed that it wasn’t a migraine, but the thought of awkward questions being fired at her over the teacups that had caused the woman to abort her social engagement.

A grunt of agreement sanctioned Dorothea’s request. Before his sister quit the room the Duke said, ‘Now my wife is home you will no doubt wish to hurry back to your own hearth, Dorothea. Tobias will see to it that you have every help to get packed up to leave the moment you are ready.’

‘Indeed, I should like to be back in Marylebone, Alfred.’ Dorothea’s puckered lips formed a thin line at the termination of her services. ‘My nerves have been stretched beyond bearing these past weeks.’ A blameful gaze landed on her niece.

‘My bank draft for your trouble will no doubt soothe them, my dear.’ Alfred followed up that dry remark with an unmistakable nod of dismissal. He then sat down. Having shaken the teapot, he poured tepid tea into his wife’s abandoned cup, then took a gulp.

‘So...explain yourself, if you will,’ he commenced testily, jabbing a glance Joan’s way. ‘You had a meeting this afternoon with Rockleigh in the park, under cover of a stroll with your vicar friend, that much I know.’ He waved an impatient hand at his daughter’s immediate protest. ‘I’m not so easily duped by the use of a beard. I’ve some personal experience of a clandestine tête-à-tête from my own youth, you know.’

‘It was no arranged meeting!’ Joan burst out. ‘I was promenading with the Reverend Walters and we came upon Mr Rockleigh with a companion.’

‘A companion, eh?’ The Duke seemed interested to hear that. ‘And who was this person?’

‘I’ve no idea. He was dressed like a clerk; when Mr Rockleigh caught sight of us they parted and the fellow disappeared into the trees. Why on earth would you believe I’d plot an assignation with a man I don’t like?’

‘So...it is all an innocent coincidence. There are no lingering passions between you in danger of rekindling?’

Joan spluttered a sound that hovered between amusement and amazement. ‘If you mean pleasant feelings, then, no, there are not! Nor were there ever any. And I don’t know why you’d think differently; we were constantly at one another’s throats when you tried to force us to wed. And I have just said I have no liking for him.’

‘Mmm...love and hate are close kin. I recall you both protested too much,’ the Duke commented reflectively. ‘You mooned about for a while and as for Rockleigh...most fellows would have accepted a token of my gratitude and esteem if only to humour me. But he wouldn’t take a penny, then or now. I applauded his lack of avarice two years ago, but this time I’m uneasy about it.’

‘But you recently gave him fifty pounds, didn’t you?’ Joan sounded perplexed.

‘Is that what he said during this private talk you had?’

‘Yes...no...’ Joan amended in confusion. ‘He told me you’d offered him that amount and I assumed he’d taken it.’

‘I did offer it, but he would not have it. He also refused to come and thank me for my most generous gesture.’ Alfred was still smarting over the snub.

‘You wanted a street fighter to come here?’ Joan’s dark brows shot together in disbelief.

‘Of course not, my dear,’ Alfred answered tetchily. ‘I travelled to his territory and waited in a carriage in Cheapside. The detective I engaged delivered the note asking him to meet me and claim his reward.’ Alfred snorted in indignation. ‘Rockleigh dismissed me as though I were a nobody! Deuced cheek of the man!’

Joan nibbled her lower lip while digesting that astonishing fact. People—even those with wealth and standing—kowtowed to her father, bowing and scraping to earn his favours. But Rockleigh was a breed apart, it seemed.

‘So...what are we to do about all of this?’ the Duke muttered to himself as he got up from the sofa and began prowling the Aubusson carpet. ‘I’m hoping the Squire, as my man Thadeus Pryke named him, is as honest and sincere as was Drew Rockleigh, but I’m not sure.’

‘What do you mean, Papa?’ A shiver of apprehension rippled through Joan. The Duke of Thornley was rarely lacking in confidence, or at a loss to know what to do about any situation.

‘Rockleigh is cognizant with our secrets. He has not once hinted to me about your youthful indiscretion since you committed it and in the past we’ve often met at clubs and functions. But he is a different person now; who is to say the Squire will not seek to capitalise on what he knows? A man who has lost wealth and rank might claw his way back into society by whatever means present themselves,’ Alfred concluded bleakly.

Joan realised that her father’s attitude was horribly cynical, yet a similar fear had tormented her when Rockleigh had reminded her of her disgrace. ‘Your secret’s safe with me, my lady...but that might be all that is...’ A sultry gleam had been in his eyes, leading her to believe that lust was behind the threat. But perhaps the base desire he had was not for her, but for the riches lodged in her father’s bank vault. ‘He promised not to betray us, Papa,’ Joan said forcefully in an attempt to reassure herself as much as her father.

‘Promised? You talked about your disgraceful behaviour two years ago?’ The Duke had stopped roaming the room to bark questions at his daughter.

Joan nodded, inwardly berating herself for having brought her heated exchange with Rockleigh to such a dangerous point. The vicar had told her the Squire was a womaniser and she’d been unable to resist hinting at what she knew. He’d retaliated by bringing up the subject of her brazen visit to his hunting lodge.

‘If he means to blackmail me...’ The Duke left the rest unsaid, but his florid physiognomy told of the impotent rage he felt at the idea becoming reality. ‘He is no longer friendly with your brother-in-law so there is no loyalty at stake to make him hesitate.’

‘He will never risk you calling his bluff, Papa. A gentleman accused of seduction is not completely off the hook.’ Joan managed a wan smile, but her rapid heartbeat made her quite breathless.

‘It seems Rockleigh is no longer a gentleman and I doubt he gives a toss for fair play or etiquette.’ The Duke headed towards the sideboard to use the decanter. The cognac he poured was shot back in a single swallow. ‘Of course he might welcome marrying you now to get himself out of the mess he’s in.’ The Duke rubbed his chin with thumb and forefinger, adding rather wistfully, ‘If I truly believed that beneath the Squire’s scruffy exterior still beat Drew Rockleigh’s heart, then I’d hear him out if he called.’

A few of Joan’s slender fingers stifled her horrified laugh. ‘Well, thank heavens he made it clear he wants no more of me now than he did then.’

‘That must have galled,’ the Duke said gently, eyeing his daughter’s proud profile. His little Joan was easily wounded; indeed, when he’d told her two years ago that Rockleigh had declined several thousand acres of prime Devon farmland, together with a handful of Mayfair freeholds, rather than contract to marry her, Alfred had thought she might blub. Of course she had not...pride had seen to that. His daughter had concealed her humiliated expression. Then she had acted as though Rockleigh’s slight was to her liking. Just as she was doing now.

‘I don’t know why the matter cropped up,’ Joan rattled off airily. ‘Our lucky escape from a forced marriage was of little importance then or now.’

‘Yet crop up, it did,’ Alfred said. ‘And who raised it?’

‘It wasn’t raised...just hinted at.’

‘By whom?’ The Duke stubbornly insisted on knowing, even though he could tell that his daughter desired the subject to be dropped.

‘I don’t recall, Papa.’ It was a fib. Joan could remember everything that had occurred during her meeting with Rockleigh. She’d wanted to know whether a street fighter regretted turning down the chance of netting a fortune and a duke’s daughter. And she’d received an answer without asking the question. ‘Nothing’s changed for me...’ he’d drawled while looking privately amused that she might have thought otherwise.

‘Do you believe him corrupt, Papa, and capable of blackmail?’ Joan asked solemnly.

For a moment the Duke said nothing, simply shaking his head slowly from side to side. ‘I always liked the fellow; Rockleigh was not only your brother-in-law’s chum, but a friend to you and me when he dealt so coolly with your misbehaviour. But now...who knows? An empty belly might turn a saint into a sinner...’