The Duchess War

She jumped to her feet, pushing away from him. “That’s not funny,” she said, not even bothering to moderate her tone. “It’s not a joke, no matter what you might think, and I’ll thank you to stop treating it as one.”

She’d knocked her teacup off the table and onto her foot in her attempt to escape from him and his horrible proposition. She could feel the wet liquid seeping into her stockings. But he made no comment; he simply straightened the tray on the table. Behind them, Lydia’s brows had drawn down; she watched them uneasily.

“Well, then,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I’ll do it my way, and you try it yours—and we’ll see who wins out.”

“That’s impossible,” she said flatly. “You can’t flirt with me. I’m going to be at war with you.”

“No, you won’t,” he said politely. “Try going to war with an unwilling combatant. I don’t think even you can manage that.”

“You don’t know what I can manage.”

“No.” He gave her a broad grin, one that started sparks flying in her belly.

And then he stood up and took her hand. This time, he bowed over it—bowed so low that his lips brushed the curve of her palm. She’d removed her gloves, and she felt the light kiss he brushed against her hand from head to toe.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m looking forward to finding out.”

Chapter Four

RAIN DOTTED THE WINDOWPANES of Robert’s upstairs study, dissolving the world outside into murky swirls. The two women on the street below appeared as receding blobs of fluttering skirts under dark umbrellas. Pale blue—that was Miss Charingford—and dark brown—that was the inimitable Miss Pursling. From above, nothing set Miss Pursling apart from any other umbrella on the street. If he hadn’t seen her gown just a few minutes ago, he’d not even have realized who it was.

He felt as if he’d woken up, weak and confused, only to be told that he’d spent the last three weeks in bed with a fever—and that during his illness, Queen Victoria had abdicated the throne and run off with a lion-tamer from Birmingham. The world seemed an entirely different place. And yet there stood Miss Pursling, pausing to stand under an awning on the corner, turning to her friend and twirling her umbrella as if nothing had happened.

As if she hadn’t just upended his every expectation.

The door opened quietly behind him and footsteps approached. He didn’t need to look to see who was coming; the servants in this household were still too much in awe of him to approach without begging for permission. That left only one possibility—Mr. Oliver Marshall.

“So,” Oliver said from behind him. “Was it as bad as you feared?”

Robert drummed his fingers against the windowsill and pondered how to respond. “Two young ladies came to solicit a contribution for the Workers’… Oh, Devil take it. I can’t remember—oh yes. The Workers’ Hygiene Commission.”

There were very few secrets that Robert kept from Oliver. He’d not mentioned Miss Pursling last night. For one, it hadn’t seemed important, and for another, if there was a secret there, it belonged to her, not him. This, though… This touched on one of the few secrets he had no choice but to keep from Oliver.

“I see. They came to gawk at you.” There was a hint of humor in the other man’s voice, and he came to stand next to him. He peered out the window too, frowning when he saw nothing of interest.

“No, actually.” Across the way, Miss Pursling and her friend passed under the awning, heads tilted toward one another, shoulders touching. The rain spilled off the metal overhang that shielded them, splashing to the ground in dirty waves of dishwater. Oliver thought they were only here to talk to the residents of town about the prospect of voting reform. Miss Pursling had threatened to reveal the truth about Robert’s other activities here, and that was substantially more annoying than gawking. On the other hand…

Robert turned to the man standing beside him. “Oliver,” he said, “how did you ever come to the conclusion that I was a worthwhile human being?”

Oliver took off his glasses and cleaned them with a handkerchief. “What makes you think I did?”

“I’m being serious. Until I met you, nobody who looked at me saw an actual person. Just a duke’s son.” Nobody since Oliver had seen an actual person, either. They’d seen a vote in the House of Lords, a fortune inherited from his grandfather. They’d seen the possibilities he represented.

Miss Pursling disappeared around the corner, and Robert shook his head. She was a problem—and a pleasure—to be dealt with on some other occasion.

Oliver gave his spectacles one last swipe and then looked over at him. “Well,” he said. “Perhaps it was because I knew precisely how much it is worth to be a duke’s son. You weren’t the only one.”

“But when I met you, I was a complete ass.”

“True,” Oliver said.

Their friendship—or whatever it was they shared—hadn’t come easily. When he’d first met Oliver, he’d made an enemy of him, encouraging the other boys to rile him up. Not as if Oliver had needed much encouragement on that score.

One day, Oliver had told him—quietly, matter-of-factly—that they were brothers. And Robert’s entire world had turned upside down.

“Why all this introspection?” Oliver asked. “It was simple. We fought; brothers often do. We took a little time to get to know one another. Then…” A shrug.

“Your memory is terrible. We didn’t ‘take a little time to get to know one another,’” Robert said. “I egged the other boys on, encouraging them to pick on you. And even once we declared peace, I had the devil of a time coming to terms with what you told me.”

He’d spent months pondering the inevitable, awful arithmetic—one that subtracted nine months from his brother’s age and came up with a date two months after Robert’s parents’ had married. His mind kept trying to manufacture some perfectly good reason why his father had sired a son out of wedlock and then abandoned him with no financial support. Robert built elaborate explanations based on messages that went astray, lies that were told, servants who happened to go on leave…

“I only stopped making excuses for my father’s behavior because I asked him what happened.”

I don’t care what she says, his father had growled. She wanted it. They always do.