The Very Daring Duchess Part 34

Oh, Edward, I am sorry!

With a creak the door opened quickly, so quickly that Francesca suspected the housekeeper who'd answered had been watching her arrival.

"Good day," she said. "Is Master Peac.o.c.k at home?"

"Might I ask who is calling, ma'am?" The housekeeper's expression remained properly impa.s.sive, her hand remaining on the doork.n.o.b as a precaution. She was an older woman with a round, ruddy face, her plumpness accentuated by an old-fas.h.i.+oned starched pinner-ap.r.o.n and an extravagantly ruffled cap tied beneath her chin.

Without thinking Francesca took an extra little breath. "Miss Francesca Robin of the city of Naples, in the Kingdom of Two Sicilies," she said, "and I believe Master Peac.o.c.k is expecting me."

"Oh, indeed, miss, he is, he is!" cried the woman with a joyous shriek, her hand fluttering to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as she flung the door wide for Francesca. "Oh, Master Peac.o.c.k, it is her, saved from the French! She has come, sir, just as you wished and prayed! Your niece is come at last!"

"Has she, Mrs. Monk?" A short, heavy-set man in an old-fas.h.i.+oned wig bustled into the hallway as fast as the cane he used for his gout would let him. "So you are my niece, young woman? You are my brother's fair Francesca? Come, come, stand here in the light so I might look at you properly!"

Promptly Francesca did as she was told, standing in the center square of the black and white marble checkerboard floor of the hallway, lifting her face to the sun was.h.i.+ng in through the fanlight over the door. As the man studied her, she in turn studied him: a stern face, softened with age, a thin-lipped mouth that would brook no nonsense. But to her shock the eyes in that stern face were exactly the same as her father's, dark and full of mischief, with wildly bristling brows that curved and swooped across his forehead and now rose with dramatic disbelief.

"You are Thomas's daughter, no doubt," he proclaimed with wondering satisfaction. "You have his spirit, his eyes, though thank the lord your mother gave you her beauty instead of his. Doubtless you have Thomas's willfulness, too, if you found your way to my doorstep clear from Italy."

"You are... kind," whispered Francesca, overwhelmed with relief and his generosity. His eyes were so much like poor Papa's, it was as if he were here with her again.

"But you are my only kin, missy," countered her uncle, "and I will not turn you away. Scarcely, ha! You must consider my house as your own, and you must stay as long as it pleases you. Welcome home, Miss Francesca, welcome home."

Home, home: and Francesca burst into tears.

Edward sat sprawled in an overstuffed armchair before the fire in the most lavish and most costly suite of rooms in the Clarendon, the same rooms, claimed Peart in uncharacteristic awe, that were always requested by a certain Russian archd.u.c.h.ess whenever she came to London. But d.a.m.nation, now they were his, thought Edward gloomily, the exclusive quarters of the seventh Duke of Harborough.

He took another long pull from the bottle of claret beside him, not bothering with the gla.s.ses-two d.a.m.ned gla.s.ses, as if he'd expected company-that the footman had provided on then same silver tray. He didn't even particularly like claret, expensive or otherwise, but that was what dukes were supposed to drink, and tonight he intended to get as righteously drunk as any mortal duke could.

For what seemed like the thousandth time that evening, he looked up at the drawing of the centaur and the nymph that he'd tucked into the frame over the mantelpiece, covering the genteel still life. He held the bottle up, haphazardly toasting the nymph, then swore and drank again.

She'd been gone when he returned to the Antelope. No note, no message, nothing to prove she'd ever been there, not even his old gold anchor ring that he'd been so proud to give her at their wedding. She'd barely waited until he'd been out of sight, then as cool as you please, she'd asked for a boat to sh.o.r.e, and vanished.

The boatman was sought, and produced, and could say no more than that. No one around the steps or wharf had seen her afterward, no driver that was questioned could swear they'd taken her as a fare. He had promised rewards to a score of men who sought her, but he already knew they'd find nothing.

He'd always admired his wife's cleverness, her resourcefulness, and if she didn't wish to be found, she wouldn't be. She had disappeared into London, and she had left him.

In her way, she'd been honest with him. She'd said from the beginning that they would part if they didn't suit-her words, as if she'd been referring to a bespoke waistcoat instead of a marriage-that she wouldn't burden him or make demands upon him afterward. She'd even said good-bye after a fas.h.i.+on, there on the dock of the Antelope when he'd been so all-fired eager to be off to Whitehall. She'd told him everything, and though he'd listened, he hadn't heard a blessed word.

She'd been honest, aye. And if he were being honest now himself, he'd admit that nothing in his life hurt as much as having her decide he did not suit as a husband.

"Forgive me, Your Grace," said Peart, gently shaking his shoulder as if he were some old sot snoring in his favorite chair at White's. "But you've a visitor, Your Grace."

"The h.e.l.l I do," grumbled Edward crossly, slurring his consonants only the slightest bit. "And I heard you knock, Peart, so don't smirk and pretend I didn't. Now send this b.l.o.o.d.y meddlesome pest on his way, go, go! Haven't I told you I'll see no one?"

"But you'll see me, Ned," said the tall gentleman as he dropped easily into the armchair across from Edward's. "Though d.a.m.n me if I wish to be called a 'b.l.o.o.d.y meddlesome pest.' Hardly civil, especially from my oldest friend."

"A b.l.o.o.d.y meddlesome friend, then," said Edward, unable to keep a delighted smile from spreading slowly across his face despite all his most melancholy intentions. "I should have expected you'd appear, Will, like black soot on white linen."

"Ah, Ned, you were ever the gracious host," said William, Earl of Bonnington, taking the second tumbler of claret that Peart had so thoughtfully filled for him. "But with all London chattering of little else but the prodigal return of the heroic new Duke of Harborough, I couldn't bear to keep away."

"To the devil with them all," said Edward, but his heart wasn't in it. Because of the war, he hadn't seen William for nearly three years, yet the months fell away in an instant as soon as his friend had grinned, almost as if they were boys again, building another fortress in the elm tree. Not only was William now a full-fledged peer himself, but he'd improved considerably from his gawky, gap-toothed youth, growing into the sort of rakishly handsome gentleman that made the ladies sigh, with broad shoulders, black curling hair, and a smile of staggering charm. But to Edward he was still the same old Will, fifty-six days his junior and the best friend he'd ever had, and the only one he'd welcome here now to share his misery.

"So," began William, crossing one leg comfortably over the other. "I have heard that you have taken a wife, Ned. Truth, or lie?"

"Truth," admitted Edward with a groan. "The warmest, most intelligent, most charming, clever, and beautiful lady you will ever meet. There's not a woman in London who can hold a candle to her, Will."

Pointedly his friend glanced around the room. "Then where are you hiding her? Where is this paragon, this ideal, this G.o.ddess of feminine perfection?"

"Gone," said Edward bleakly, covering his eyes with his arm. "As soon as we reached London, she disappeared, and I haven't seen her since."

"She wasn't carried off? No foul play?"

Edward shook his head. "I would have heard if there were. She left me, Will, plain and simple, turned her back and walked away."

William whistled low. "Did the wretched little harlot know she'd become a d.u.c.h.ess?"

"Francesca's not a harlot, Will," said Edward sharply. "You might be my oldest friend, but I'll still insist on satisfaction if you call her that again."

"Because you love her, don't you?" William smiled sadly. "You poor old b.u.g.g.e.r. You finally find a lady to your liking, and she doesn't return the favor."

"But she does love me, Will, I'm sure of it!" Edward pounded his fist on the arm of the chair from frustration. "That's what makes this all such a d.a.m.ned puzzle. I love her, and I'd wager my life she loves me the same. So where in blazes is she hiding?"

"That's what we must discover, isn't it?" William poured himself more claret, then refilled Edward's gla.s.s as well. "My two greatest talents are hunting and women, so combining the two should make for divine sport. Your little vixen won't keep herself hidden forever, you know. Have you a likeness of her?"

"Only that," said Edward morosely, pointing at the sketch of the nymph and the centaur. "It's not exactly her, but close enough. Mind you look only at the face, Will or I'll have to strike out your eyes."

William whistled again, this time in unabashed admiration. "You did enjoy yourself in merry old Italy, didn't you? No wonder you want her back, and on her back, too, from the-"

"Will," warned Edward ominously. "Recall that Francesca is my wife, and that I have always bettered you at swords and pistols both."

"You will never let me forget it, will you?" His grin softened again. "But we shall find her, Ned. Wherever she is, we'll find her."

But Edward was still gazing up at the sketch.

"Oh, my sweet Francesca," he said, his voice a rough whisper of longing. "I do love you, you know. Still do, and always will, even though you played me for the world's greatest fool. Grazie, grazie, and devil take the rest, eh?"

With the neck of the bottle dangling between two fingers, he stared down into the dying fire, watching the sparks explode and scatter upward when the last log finally burned through and collapsed in two. All he wanted was to find her, and talk to her, and say whatever he had to make her come back.

And later, after William had left, much later, and for the first time since Edward had left Palermo, the familiar nightmare of the Centaur and the L'Orient returned like a forgotten old lover to steal his sleep.

0="13"13.

For two weeks of hard work, Francesca had antic.i.p.ated this moment, and with a chisel and mallet she carefully began to pry away the nails that had sealed the first of the wooden crates.

"Shouldn't we ask one of the footmen to do that, miss?" asked Uncle Peac.o.c.k anxiously as he watched Francesca wrestle with the crate. "That's heavy work for a lady, miss."

But Francesca only grinned as she pulled off the top planks and plunged her hand deep into the wood shavings that filled the crate. She'd been hearing that anxious cry from her uncle and Mrs. Monk repeatedly since she'd begun transforming these two ground floor parlors into her new London gallery.