Game of Dukes, page 23
Phin felt an unnatural calm settle over him the following morning, quelling his anger at what Celeste had told him about Darwin and his aunt. Hidden in an alcove close to Alice’s room with Celeste squeezed a little too close for comfort at his side, he was about to discover if she’d got it right. His breath caught in his throat when Darwin came into view at precisely the time Celeste had predicted he would. He walked with more confidence than stealth towards Alice’s door and let himself into her room without knocking. Phin glanced at Celeste, his expression grim, but he couldn’t think of anything to say.
‘I will fetch Emma,’ Celeste whispered.
Phin and John, who had been waiting nearby, stood outside Emma’s door, listening to Celeste whisper to her. Emma’s voice rose in confusion, but Celeste’s calm assurances that there was something she needed to see clearly got through to his cousin, and a short time later she appeared in her doorway, a robe belted over her nightgown, hair hanging in a long braid down her back.
‘Phin!’ Emma glanced between Phin and John in confusion, then back at Celeste. ‘What’s going on? I don’t understand.’
‘I’m sorry, Emma,’ Phin said, sympathy in his tone. ‘This is going to be difficult for you, but there’s no help for it. Come, there’s something you have to see for yourself.’
He took her arm and propelled her along the corridor as he spoke. Celeste and John followed behind and the small party stopped directly outside of Alice’s room.
‘This is my aunt’s room,’ Emma said, sounding more confused than ever. ‘Why would we disturb her so early in the day? Has something happened? Has Alvin been taken ill?’
Afraid that her voice would penetrate the thick walls and give Darwin the opportunity to hide himself, Phin sent Emma another apologetic look and thrust the door open. His timing was as impeccable as it was distasteful. Emma stood in the aperture, gaping at her husband and aunt in a clinch beneath the covers. Their faces drained of colour as they stared back with expressions of even greater shock—which gradually gave way to fear. Emma gasped and turned on her heel, heading straight back to her room. Celeste went with her.
‘Ten minutes, in the drawing room,’ Phin said to the guilty lovers, turning also and closing the door with a resounding bang.
John positioned himself outside of Emma’s room while Celeste helped her dress. He told Phin later that Darwin had tried to bully and push his way past him, demanding his right to consult with his wife. John took pleasure in telling him he had forfeited that right when he chose to bed her aunt. Darwin turned the air blue with his language, then went to his own room to dress, no doubt formulating explanations that he assumed would satisfy his doting wife.
Emma walked into the drawing room with Celeste at her side. Her back was straight and she looked considerably less distressed than Phin had feared might be the case. Celeste was right about her. She had hidden depths.
‘I’m sorry, Emma, really I am,’ Phin said as he escorted her to a seat, indicating that Celeste should take the one beside her to prevent Darwin from so doing when he arrived. ‘But you would not have believed me if I’d told you and he would have convinced you that I had made it all up. I didn’t believe it myself until I saw him enter that room with my own eyes.’
‘You want to know where he got his money from,’ Emma said, dried eyed and clearly fighting mad.
‘Tell us in front of Darwin and Alice,’ Phin said. ‘I’d like to gauge their reaction.’
Darwin walked in at that moment, clearly having dressed in a hurry, as evidenced by the lack of his customary attention to detail. His waistcoat was misbuttoned, his neckcloth improperly tied and there were stains on the lapels of his coat.
‘I need to speak privately with my wife,’ he said imperiously.
‘Sit down and be quiet,’ Phin replied, enough authority in his voice to make Darwin comply.
Alice, attempting a dignity that she failed to pull off, walked through the door with Alvin at her side.
‘I say,’ Alvin remarked, his expression wary. ‘What’s to do at such an early hour?’
‘We were about to ask your mother and Darwin the same question,’ Phin replied mildly.
‘I am so very sorry, Emma,’ Alice said, her words sincere but inadequate and totally ineffectual. ‘I can assure you that we meant you no harm. It was simply idle fun.’
‘What was?’ Alvin asked, looking mystified.
Emma ignored Alice, looked directly at Phin and straightened her shoulders. ‘You want to know where Toby got his recent windfall.’
‘Emma,’ Darwin said in a threatening tone.
Everyone ignored him, including Emma, which clearly flummoxed Darwin.
‘He embezzled it from the duchy’s funds. Frazer helped him. I was not supposed to know, but I overheard him talking about it.’ She pointed an accusatory finger at Alice. ‘To her.’
‘You too, Alice?’ Phin asked in a resigned tone.
‘For what it’s worth, I advised against it and did not profit from his stupidity.’
‘Why did you want to bankrupt the man who supported your lifestyle?’ Phin asked.
Darwin was intent upon studying the toes of his boots, clearly mortified to have been caught out and, worse, to accept that his docile wife was responsible for said catching.
‘My husband had debts, and my father told him he wouldn’t settle any more of them,’ Emma said. ‘I know because I overheard that argument as well. People tend to overlook me because I am so quiet, but that doesn’t mean I am deaf, or stupid. The people Toby had borrowed from are not the type to extend endless credit and he was desperate. Frazer was forced to help him because Toby knows of some unsavoury personal habits of his. I do not know the particulars, nor do I wish to, but I do know that Frazer was not a willing conspirator.’
‘Look, I’ll pay you back,’ Darwin said, rallying. ‘I was desperate, but it won’t happen again.’
‘No,’ Phin replied. ‘It will not. Tell me, was I going to meet with an unfortunate accident too, once I’d used my wealth to restore this place? I am aware that you and Alice wanted Alvin to be the duke.’ He hadn’t been sure of it but when neither of them denied it, he knew he’d got it right.
‘Me?’ Alvin looked astounded. ‘I don’t want to be the duke. I’d been terrible at it.’
‘Darwin wanted you in that position so that he could control the duchy, once all my funds had been invested into it, naturally,’ Phin replied, slapping Alvin’s shoulder. The boy trembled and fell into the nearest chair. ‘That’s why he took you under his wing.’
‘No one was going to kill you, Phin,’ Alice said. ‘But he did have a crazy scheme,’ she added, pointing at Darwin, clearly willing to give him up in an effort to save herself. ‘I wanted no part of that, either.’
‘Tell me,’ Phin said wearily.
‘He knew that your mother was still alive and that my brother was supporting her. He got curious about Edward’s constant visits to London, so he followed him and discovered the truth.’
‘Which he planned to use against me, thinking it would be sufficient to make me crawl under a rock and die. Or at least abdicate the title and return to America.’
Phin sent Darwin a scathing look, well aware that he hadn’t told Alice the whole truth. Abdicating would be a prolonged affair and Darwin wouldn’t have been let near the riches until it was resolved, a process that could have taken years. It would be better and far easier if Phin was well and truly dead. No doubt the accident that had killed his uncle had put ideas into Darwin’s twisted mind.
Still, it explained why Darwin had looked more disappointed than shocked when Phin had told them all that his mother was still alive. It had spoiled his little surprise and he would have had to become more creative, leaving him no option but to arrange another accident. Some families were cursed by one bad stroke of luck after another. No one would have thought anything of it, and Darwin had damned nearly succeeded making their family appear to be blighted. If Celeste hadn’t noticed him creeping into Alice’s room…
‘Do you wish to remain living here, Emma?’ Phin asked gently.
She met his gaze and held it. ‘Would you have me?’
‘You are always welcome.’
‘Then yes please.’ She turned towards her husband. ‘Which means you, my dear, had best pack your bags.’
‘No!’ Darwin smiled his most winning smile, clearly not believing that the submissive little thing he had married had grown fangs. ‘You cannot be sincere.’
She lifted her chin in an imperious manner. ‘Never more so.’
‘You heard the lady, Darwin. Go with him while he packs, John, and make sure he doesn’t help himself to anything that isn’t his.’
Darwin glowered at them all, a cornered animal with nowhere left to hide. ‘A curse upon the lot of you. I am finished with this damned place anyway.’
He swept from the room with John dogging his footsteps, leaving a heavy silence in his wake.
‘What of me, Phin?’ Alice asked meekly.
‘Take a long holiday and give Emma some breathing space,’ Phin replied, thinking she had at least not been malicious—just stupid, thoughtless and selfish. ‘Then we will decide.’
‘She can stay,’ Emma said. ‘I bear her no ill will. In fact she has done me a favour, albeit unintentionally. I have been trying to convince myself for a long time that my marriage to Toby was not the terrible mistake that it felt like. That deep down he really loved me and my father had been wrong about him. But I knew when I heard him plotting with Frazer to steal from Papa that he thought only of himself.’ She sighed. ‘I wish I had found the courage then to confront him, but I was too frightened of what he would do to me if he realised I knew. Besides, it was a matter of pride.’ She smiled with a sense of newfound confidence. ‘I am so very glad that you have come back, Phin,’ she said. ‘You have helped me to see that being a deserted wife is better than being an unhappy one.’
Phin squeezed her shoulder. ‘Then I am glad too,’ he told her.
*
A week had passed since Toby had left the Abbey. No one knew where he had gone and no one cared, least of all Emma, who appeared to blossom by the day. Alice remained meek, aware that Phin was still furious with her and that her son, deeply shocked by her behaviour, had grown up overnight.
Phin and Celeste wandered through the now fully restored courtyard, the first time that they had been alone together during the course of a frantic week.
‘It looks wonderful,’ Celeste said, touching one of the newly-restored statues and admiring the plants that had been neatly entrenched in soft soil. ‘It exceeds my expectations. Is this how it used to look?’
‘It is how I remember it, but I was a child with little interest in aesthetics.’
‘Have you decided yet if you will restore it?’ she asked, following the direction of his gaze which rested upon the west wing.
‘Yes, I think I will. It deserves to be brought back to life and the ghosts of the past should be well and truly laid to rest.’
‘How did you get in when you heard me scream? I have been meaning to ask you about that.’ And would have done before now, she silently added, if you had not taken to avoiding me again.
‘Come with me.’
He took her hand, lifted a hidden hatch at the corner of the building and led her down some steps. ‘Mind your head.’
She followed, intrigued, and they eventually came out in the drawing room that she had set foot in just once before under vastly different circumstances.
‘It reminds you of your mother, I suppose.’
‘It reminds me of Matthew, more than anything. That gallery was a source of endless games for two lively boys with energy to spare.’ He shook his head. ‘There I go again, speaking of him and giving you pain. I have solved all of my own mysteries but I cannot bring back the man you loved.’
‘Loved?’ It was her turn to shake her head. ‘Well yes, I did love him, but not in the manner you seem to think.’ Phin looked endearingly confused. ‘He was the big brother I never had. My protector against Toby’s lecherous interests. My friend and confidante. But I did not yearn after him in the biblical sense.’ Not in the way that I yearn for you. ‘You had not seen him for years so you cannot be aware how he turned out. Suffice it to say that he would have been more comfortable in your company than mine.’
‘Matthew? Good heavens!’
‘That’s why he spent so much time in France, I think. They are less judgemental about that sort of thing on the other side of the Channel. He knew he would have to marry eventually and asked me to enter into a marriage of convenience with him, to keep up appearances, but I couldn’t do it. It wouldn’t have been fair to either of us.’
‘You have had to put up with a great deal since you came here,’ Phin said, his eyes alight with sympathy, and something more fundamental. Something that gave her hope. ‘I don’t suppose you would agree to extend the period of time that you have agreed to remain.’
‘By how long?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ He pulled her into his arms, but she sensed his growing uncertainly. ‘I was rather thinking the rest of your life.’ He paused for a prolonged moment. ‘As my wife.’
She blinked up at him, hardly daring to believe she had heard him right. ‘Your wife?’
‘My wife. I have avoided asking you before now, even though I knew what was in my heart almost as soon as I saw you, because I thought your heart belonged to Matthew. Now I know different.’ He wagged a finger beneath her nose. ‘And I don’t want to hear any nonsense about not being duchess material. We are hardly a conventional family and I am determined to be a most unconventional duke.’
‘I wasn’t about to make any such objections.’
‘So you do not compare our situation to that of your fictional earl and his kitchen maid?’
‘Certainly not. You are hardly a callow youth dependent upon others for your livelihood, and you presumably know your own mind. I very much doubt if you will give two figs for society’s disapproval.’
He gave a wolfish smile. ‘Are you agreeing to be—’
She held up a hand to cut off his words, determined to say what was on her mind. ‘It’s not as though my lowly connections can do serious harm to your family’s credibility,’ she mused. ‘Your uncle and aunt, to say nothing of your mother, have already done the damage in that respect.’
‘You were expecting my declaration?’
‘Not expecting it, no.’ She blushed and looked away from him. ‘I fully intended to leave because I couldn’t abide the thought of seeing you besieged with by other females. You would not have been able to hold them at bay indefinitely and I could not have borne it.’ Speaking candidly and from the heart, she found the courage to look at him again. ‘But I did sense a connection, an indefinable something between us.’ She lifted a shoulder. ‘I realised it was inappropriate and tried to ignore it but it refused to go away, so knew I would have to distance myself instead. I thought you felt it as well and were avoiding me to make it clear that nothing could come of it. I understood, had always known it could not and I fully intended to leave.’
‘Now that I have confirmed the courage of my convictions, are you saying that you will agree to become my duchess?’
His expression remained endearingly hopeful. Always self-assured, the fact that he doubted his ability to win her heart was a timely lesson in humility for him, but she couldn’t find it in the heart in question to tease him indefinitely.
‘I have yet to hear any declarations of undying love,’ she said playfully. ‘I am something of a romantic, I’m afraid, just like my mother was, and will not marry for anything less.’
He sent her a look of mock astonishment. ‘You doubt my love for you?’
‘I would like to hear you declare it, if you do not mind.’
‘Not in the least, my sweet. Your presence here has been my salvation and my penance. I cannot think straight for the desire I feel for you whenever I sense your perfume in the air, hear the rustle of your skirts, see the adorable manner in which you wrinkle your nose when something displeases you.’ He sighed. ‘I am rather a hopeless case, you see. Those are most definitely the signs of an undying love.’
Celeste canted her head, bursting with happiness as she pretended to ponder his statement. ‘Well yes, they are certainly encouraging signs.’
‘Then you will be my wife?’ He fell to one knee in front of her, placing his trust in the rotted floorboards. ‘I promise you most faithfully that I am not made from the same mould as my uncle and will be a most constant husband.’
‘Oh, do get up, Phin.’ She took his hand and tugged it until he regained his feet and loomed over her, protective, anxious and so very dear to her. ‘Of course I will marry you.’ She threw her arms around his neck. ‘In fact, I was beginning to think that you would never ask.’
The End
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I’m a British author, brought up on the Isle of Wight, but now live in Andorra. I share my life with my long-suffering husband and a rescued dog of indeterminate pedigree named Jake Bentley after the hero in one of my books. Both Jakes are handsome mongrels with independent spirits and wild streaks.
