The Duke's Hidden Desire (Scandals of Scarcliffe Hall Book 2) Read online

  Robert produced a pack of cards and began shuffling them idly, clearly more interested in talk than in dealing. “How are we all this evening, gentlemen? Quite recovered from yesterday’s excesses?”

  “I am not,” said Hart shortly. “I have a sore head and a horror of any mention of dancing or champagne. So please, let us not gossip over last night’s adventures like a gaggle of old women. We all danced with one or two very pretty girls, and several plain ones, we all stayed up far too late, and some of us,” with a meaningful glance at his brother, “spent far too much time wandering the grounds, presumably in the company of a young lady whose name does not bear mentioning. There. I have taken the liberty of summing up at least an hour’s conversation, and now we can go on without the nuisance of it.”

  Beaumont rather suspected that the young lady Hart was referring to was Lady Cecily, the Duke of Loxwell’s daughter, and the Hartley family’s sworn enemy. Whatever was brewing between her and Robert, he did not want to get involved.

  Unperturbed, Robert began dealing the cards out, with a quick and skilful hand. “It so happens that while I was wandering the grounds, as you put it, I came across a rather interesting sight.”

  “I suppose you want to tell us what it is,” said Northmere, taking up his hand. “Blast! Scarcliffe, are you sure you shuffled these properly?”

  “I chanced to look up at the windows overlooking the topiary garden,” continued Robert doggedly. Hart let out a snort of derision.

  “And what, pray, were you doing in the topiary garden?”

  “And I saw a couple embracing rather intimately in one of the upstairs rooms,” said Robert, ignoring his brother.

  Beaumont was relieved that everybody’s eyes immediately fixed on Northmere.

  “What? Me?” Northmere shook his head. “You know I’m as keen for a romp as the next man, but I was dancing all night. You know that.”

  “And I was hiding from the ladies, not embracing them,” said Beaumont quickly. Hart rolled his eyes.

  “Yes, yes, Beaumont – I’m sure we don’t know how you suffer, being so much in demand.” He turned to Robert. “In which window, precisely, were they…embracing?”

  Robert looked faintly embarrassed. “I can’t say.”

  “Surely you know the layout of this old place well enough,” Hart pressed him.

  “I was…distracted,” Robert admitted. The other men crowed.

  “Poor form, to cast aspersions on another man’s liaison while undertaking your own,” said Beaumont, as they began to play.

  “I was not – oh, never mind.” Robert laid down his card. “Your turn, Beaumont.”

  Beaumont was no fool. Unless, by some incredibly unlikely chance, there happened to be another couple kissing beside the window in the next room along from his, it must surely have been himself and his mysterious milkmaid that Robert had seen.

  He let his attention to the game lapse as the memory of that kiss played out in his mind. It wasn’t like him to be affected by such a simple thing, and yet…

  It was the woman herself. How innocent she’d been! Such a delectable mixture of curiosity and hesitation, reluctance and desire! If a sculptor had taken it into his head to craft a woman precisely suited to arouse Beaumont’s interest, the result would have been her.

  And the angel had left without even telling him her name. He had watched her leave, flanked by Robert and the man who appeared to be her father. Who was she? And what was she doing in the house that night, since she was not a party guest?

  Beaumont waited until all talk of kissing had been long forgotten, and the other men were all thoroughly absorbed in the game. “I noticed you walking about with a couple of people who did not seem to be party guests last night, Scarcliffe.”

  Robert winced. “Another jibe at my hosting skills, Beaumont? I have put my trust in all of you fellows that you will not breathe a word of my absenteeism to my father.”

  “I was simply wondering who they were,” said Beaumont. “An older man, soberly dressed, and a girl who seemed to be his daughter.”

  “Ah! Now I know who you mean. That was Dr Hawkins and his daughter, Miss Anna Hawkins. They were both invited to the ball, you know, but since the doctor also treats the Duke of Loxwell’s family, they thought it best not to attend.”

  Nobody failed to notice the way Robert was pinned by an accusatory glance from his younger brother at the mention of the Duke of Loxwell, though no-one was foolhardy enough to mention his daughter.

  “A blessing, really, that they did not come,” Robert continued, sailing easily past the awkward moment. “Miss Hawkins is recently engaged, and I would have been obliged to invite her fiancé, though I do not like him.”

  “Gilbert Jackson may not be to your taste as a companion, Robert, but I will not hear a word against him,” said Hart, colour rushing to his cheeks. “He did me a great favour once, as you know, and I am in his debt.”

  Beaumont was not sure he wished to hear much talk about the man whose betrothed he had recently kissed, but morbid curiosity drove him on. “What favour was that, Hart?”

  If Hart’s colour had been red before, it was glowing like a hot coal now. “He saved me from entangling myself in a most unfortunate marriage. He may be a little brash, and his fortune comes from trade, but he is a fine fellow all the same.”

  Well, Beaumont had asked a question he shouldn’t have, and for his troubles he had heard his rival described as a fine fellow. Fortunately, he was more the master of his own temperament than his friend Hart, and he was able to conceal his chagrin without too much difficulty.

  Besides, there was something in what Miss Hawkins said about the behaviour of dukes and gentlemen. Why should Beaumont think himself so far above the common man that he should be able to kiss whomever he chose, regardless of their prior attachments? It was not as if he intended to marry the girl. He would do best to leave her to this Gilbert Jackson and forget the kiss had ever happened.

  It was at this point that Beaumont became aware of the flaw in his education, which, excellent as it was, had never let him forget that he was heir to a dukedom and therefore above his tutors. Even as a child, he had rarely had a desire thwarted. If he could choose one flaw in his character above the doubtless numerous others, it would have been that he too often took what he wanted, and too rarely felt the consequences.

  And he was surprised to discover that he did want Anna Hawkins, she of the plain dress and pert replies and eager lips. He wanted her to the point of distraction.

  5

  Anna was busy. That was not unusual. Her life was not given over to idle leisure, and she liked it that way. Busy hands made for a tranquil mind.

  It was mid-morning, some days after the masquerade and her encounter with the seductive masked man, and the August heat had crept into every corner of the house. Anna had risen at dawn with her father and ensured he wolfed down a good breakfast before he went out on his first call of the day. She had spoken to the housekeeper about what to order from the market for their next week’s meals and had given her directions for washday. Mrs Pierce was the one servant Dr Hawkins could afford, and was equal parts blessing and burden. If the doctor’s heart had been a little harder, and if Anna had not needed an older woman to chaperone her, she would have been dismissed long ago for one of her many errors.

  When Anna was satisfied that Mrs Pierce would get through the day with tolerable accuracy, she turned to her chief task of the morning: sorting and rolling her father’s set of clean bandages. This ought to have been done by Mr Floyd, his assistant, but the two medical men served too wide an area to manage their own supplies as well. Anna had taken the role as soon as she was able to keep track of usage and expenditure in a little notebook, and she relished it.

  If she could not study medicine and heal the people of Loxton and its surrounding villages, she would at least make herself useful to them.

  Once the bandages were rolled, she would have to check the levels of her father and Mr Flo
yd’s supplies of mandrake, opium, mercury, and other ingredients, and, if necessary, make a trip to the apothecary to top them up. She would round off her morning by balancing the accounts which the two men were notoriously lax about completing. If it were not for Anna and her iron-hard sense of fairness, the gentlemen would rarely be paid at all. She would need to make notes of who needed chasing up, who had exceeded their credit, and who had recently fallen into dire circumstances and whose bill they could afford to forget. In a town like Loxton, where work was increasingly scarce, that third column grew ever larger.

  But not for long, Anna remembered, glancing down at the bare fourth finger of her left hand. Gilbert would fix that. Gilbert would fix it all.

  And all it would cost was her future…

  Anna shook the worries from her mind and resumed planning her day as she rolled the bandages. She would eat a light lunch – it was too hot to eat much more than a piece of fruit – and the afternoon would be taken up by needlework, until the light grew too low to see the stitches.

  A good day’s work. What more could she ask for than that?

  When an unexpected knocking came at the front door, Anna barely glanced up from her task. Whoever it was would be disappointed; the gentlemen were both out on calls. She left it to Mrs Pierce to give the caller the bad news.

  To her complete amazement, Mrs Pierce entered the drawing room in a state of extreme anxiety. Her face was flushed, her eyes wild, and her hand shook as she passed Anna the card of whoever it was at the door.

  “Oh, Miss,” whispered Mrs Pierce, clutching at her chest as though she were about to suffer a seizure. “What will we do? What will we do?”

  Anna’s fingers felt the source of Mrs Pierce’s anxiety even before she read the name on the card. It was small – small enough to fit into a gentleman’s pocket, while ladies’ cards were larger. The card was thick and well-made. Its borders were edged with an elegant scalloped design meant to indicate that this card had no ordinary bearer.

  Anna’s stomach did a queer tumble as she read the name. Or, rather, the title.

  The Duke of Beaumont.

  That was it. She turned the card over, examining it for some secret hint that it was other than it seemed.

  “It must be a joke, Mrs Pierce,” she said. “Who is at the door? One of the village boys, no doubt, in his Sunday best.”

  Mrs Pierce shook her head adamantly. “A very fine gentleman,” she blurted out.

  Anna glanced towards the window, at the empty street. “No carriage? No servants?”

  “No, Miss. But he is such a very fine gentleman…”

  “I think we need not concern ourselves with the notion that he is an actual duke, Mrs Pierce.” Anna struggled to control a nervous laugh. She had an idea of the man who must have come calling, and was shocked to find that the thought of meeting her audacious masked stranger again made her chest flutter with excitement. An excitement she would do well not to reveal. “A duke would come in a carriage, attended by his footmen, just as the Duke of Loxwell does when he passes through town. Really, this stranger must think we are so provincial here in Loxton that we have never seen a lord go by!”

  “What shall I do, Miss?” Mrs Pierce’s hands were fluttering anxiously. “I don’t like to send him away at the door, just in case…”

  “No, there’s no need to be rude. I will happily receive him.” Anna wondered why she did not simply ask Mrs Pierce to tell the stranger that she was not at home. Surely, she did not desire further attention from that man?

  No, she told herself. I wish only to see his face – if it is truly my masked stranger. I will send him on his way after ten minutes of polite chatter, and that will be that.

  The man who entered the drawing room shortly afterwards both was and was not the man Anna had expected.

  He was her stranger, certainly. The right height, with the right breadth of shoulder, and the dark eyes and firm jaw that she remembered. But his face carried an air of such nobility, of absolute certainty of his place above the world, that Anna forgot his awful, ungentlemanly behaviour. She was so startled by his handsome face, one she had too often dared to imagine, that she was struck almost dumb.

  “Miss Hawkins,” smiled the gentleman. “I was sorry to find your father not at home, for now I must be impudent and introduce myself without his permission. But I think an acquaintance as unique as ours can suffer the indignity, don’t you think?”

  “Do excuse me, sir,” said Anna, recovering her wits as the apparition spoke and revealed itself to be only a man – and an impertinent one, at that. “No acquaintance yet exists between us.”

  He smiled a cool, almost arrogant smile that left Anna wondering whether she ought to smack it from his face or rejoice that she had brought it to those elegant lips. “Don’t tell me you do not recognise me, Miss Hawkins, for I won’t believe you.”

  “You did not introduce yourself at the ball,” said Anna, primly sitting down and taking up her bandages once more. “I cannot, therefore, say that we are acquainted.”

  “Do you often kiss gentlemen before you even know their names?”

  Anna flushed a delicate pink, gladder than she could say that Mrs Pierce was far too clumsy to listen at keyholes. “Never,” she said. A shadow fell across her work as the man approached.

  “Never,” he repeated, as though it was precisely what he wanted to hear. “Never, but once with me.”

  His hand brushed Anna’s shoulder. She felt a queer hot shiver run from the place he touched all the way down her spine. She was remembering the kiss, and that was exactly what she ought not to remember. “What are you doing?”

  “I am lying, it seems,” said the man, taking a seat beside her. “I was lying when I said I was sorry not to find your father at home. For my purposes, it is better that we are alone.”

  Anna stood up abruptly. “You are trying to seduce me.”

  That tiger’s smile spread more widely across his lips. “Yes. Do you like it?”

  “I do not.” Anna took a smart step to the doorway and called, “Mrs Pierce! Please bring your needlework in here a moment.”

  The smile disappeared. He looked confused. “Then you truly do not believe I am the Duke of Beaumont?”

  “Arriving here on foot, with no servants, and nothing but a calling card which anybody might have printed – or stolen? Not to mention your ungentlemanly insistence on trying to kiss me? No, I do not!” Anna folded her arms. “And if you should happen to be the Duke of Beaumont, why, your behaviour suggests you are embarrassed to be seen calling on me. Why else would you come unattended, and unannounced?”

  “It was for your sake that I arrived incognito,” the man protested. “The last thing I want is to risk your reputation.”

  “The last thing?” Anna raised an eyebrow and stared him down until he laughingly threw up his hands.

  “Very well! My designs on your reputation are hardly respectable. I want to kiss you again, and more. Much more. But I did not intend to leave you destitute… afterwards.”

  Even he, in all his arrogance, paused to take note of the way that afterwards hung in the air.

  “You are not married yet,” he finished lamely. Anna opened her mouth to tell him exactly what she made of that statement, when Mrs Pierce came bustling in with an overflowing basket of needlework in her arms.

  “Pardon me, sir – Your Grace – your lordship – oh –”

  The man drew himself to his feet, putting on his unmistakable air of authority the way other men might put on a jacket. Anna felt a prickle of doubt about the truth of his identity. Could he really be a duke? “A simple Your Grace will do nicely, good lady.”

  Mrs Pierce blushed, curtseyed, nearly dropped her needlework, and retired to a corner following a stern glance from Anna.

  “Just supposing you are the Duke of Beaumont,” Anna allowed, working her way around the room with her back to the wall in order to keep the man at the greatest distance possible. “Why should that affect my answ
er to your… proposition?”

  “Isn’t it every woman’s dream to catch a duke?”

  “I should think that keeping, rather than catching, was the chief attraction.” Anna reached her destination, an uncomfortable wooden chair with no space for him to sit down beside her. “In any case, no. My dreams are far less lofty – and far more important.”

  He took a seat opposite her. “Do tell. Does the fortunate Mr Jackson fulfil your every desire?”

  Anna wondered how he had come by Gilbert’s name. “He has promised to do so.”

  “Men make many promises.”

  “But not all of them are built in steel and stone.” Anna lifted her chin proudly. She was proud, truly – and she had a right to be. “Gilbert Jackson is going to build a cotton factory on the outskirts of Loxton.”

  “A cotton factory!” Whatever the man – the duke? – was expecting, it certainly wasn’t that. “How ghastly! Are all your dreams so mundane?”

  “There, see.” Anna nodded, satisfied. “I knew you had not noticed. Men of your station never notice.”

  “Notice what?”

  “Why, the grinding poverty which has all but overwhelmed Loxton! You walked here today. Did you not see the houses in dire need of repair? The children running through the streets for want of a school? The young men sitting outside the inn, with nothing to do but ruin themselves with drink? There is no work to be had, and work is badly needed.”

  “I saw a rather pretty little town,” shrugged the man, “and, if I chanced to see those idle young men, doubtless I admired the easy route they had chosen through life.”

  “It is not easy to be poor and without employment,” Anna countered stoutly. “Gilbert is going to invest in this town. He has secured the Duke of Loxwell’s permission to build a factory, and has gathered investors for the venture. He will make life in Loxton better for everyone.”