Least Likely to Marry a Duke (Liberated Ladies)

Then she saw his gaze was flickering from her to the Duke and back and understood.

Oh, no, Papa. We have had the conversation about matchmaking before—and the fact that this one is a duke makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.

But he was a guest and common courtesy must be observed at all costs. ‘Do allow me to show you the fountain, Your Grace. It was created to a design of my late mother’s, although she never saw it completed.’

He offered his arm as was proper and she placed her fingertips on it as they began to stroll along the central path. Was it simply the fact that he was a duke that created this strange aura of power that he carried with him? Or was it just that he was a tall, broad-shouldered man approaching his prime? Or perhaps it was simply this ridiculous awareness she had of him, a potent combination of physical attraction and dislike.

Her friend Melissa Taverner would doubtless say it was because Verity was suppressing her natural animal instincts and she should indulge in some flirtation, or even kissing, in order to give them free rein. But then Melissa would probably find the Duke’s stepmother a sister spirit, with equally advanced notions about ‘natural’ behaviour. Verity did not want to revert to nature. She had given in to those instincts once before—and discovered them seriously flawed—and now she simply wanted to have control over every aspect of her own life.

As they approached the central pool she chatted brightly about plants and garden design without receiving any response beyond polite murmurs. Then the Duke said, abruptly, ‘Did you lose your mother recently, Miss Wingate?’

‘When I was ten. It was a short illness of a few months. She was gone almost before anyone realised how serious it was.’ There was something about the quality of his silence that prompted her to add, ‘You were young when you lost your own mother, I believe?’

‘I was nine. Eighteen years ago. I hardly knew her.’ Perhaps he thought that sounded harsh because he added, ‘Do you recall your mother clearly?’

‘I remember her face—but that is easy, her portrait hangs in the dining room. I can recall her voice—it was gentle and sweet. I do not think I ever heard her raise it. Her hands were soft.’ Verity caught herself before her voice wobbled. ‘She was very pious and a very...traditional wife, I think.’

Not very intelligent, I suspect. No intellectual to match Papa. But a good woman. One who was loved. One who created a happy home.

‘Are you pious and traditional, Miss Wingate?’

Startled, she glanced up, and caught a flicker of something unexpected in the heavy blue gaze. Amusement? Warmth? Sarcasm, probably. ‘Pious? I hope I am a faithful churchwoman, but I lay no claim to piety. You know already that I am not traditional, Your Grace. But as I am not married, who knows whether I would be such a wife as my mother was.’

They had reached the fountain and she moved away from him to sit on the stone rim of the pool. She trailed her hand in the cool water and waited until the fish rose, as they always did, to nibble hopefully at her fingers. In the distance the laughter and calls from the young people told her that they had found the maze and over that happy sound drifted the first rippling bars of a piano sonata.

‘Who is the pianist? They are ver

y skilled.’ The Duke propped his cane against the stone and stood beside her, too much on his dignity, she supposed, to perch on the fountain rim and risk the spray. He looked up and his gaze sharpened on the eastern tower.

‘She is a friend of mine. There is no pianoforte in her house and so she uses mine to practise.’ The others would be up there, too, in the Demoiselles’ Tower as Mr Hoskins, with one of his unexpected flights of fancy, called her private turret. Lucy playing; Melissa, fingers inky, working on her latest novel; Prue with her nose in a Greek grammar; and Jane painting the view, or her friends at work. The door at the top of the decorative external stairway that encircled the tower was firmly closed, thank goodness.

‘That is very generous of you. Your friend makes good use of the opportunity.’ He paused so long that Verity looked up to see him frowning in the direction of the catcalls and laughter. ‘Excuse me if I am jumping to conclusions, but if the fact that she does not own her own pianoforte means that her financial circumstances are a trifle restricted, might she be interested in teaching my sisters?’

There was no pianoforte in Lucy’s home because her parents, who could perfectly well have afforded one in every room, considered music, other than church music, to be decadent and probably sinful. Most things were sinful, according to Mr and Mrs Lambert, especially anything that gave pleasure. Verity sometimes wondered how Lucy and her four brothers were ever conceived. Miserably, probably. She had learned to play at school, from which she had been removed when her parents discovered that three of the pupils were the illegitimate daughters of an earl. When they realised that Lucy had been practising on the old piano in the church vestry she had bruises on the palms of her hands for days and now they had no idea she was still playing.

‘I am afraid not. It is not lack of funds, it is her mama’s sensitivity to any loud noise that prevents Lucy from playing at home.’ Loud sounds including laughter. ‘It is a good pianoforte, but I am an indifferent player, so I am delighted that she puts it to such good use.’

‘No doubt you are proficient at other musical instruments. The harp, perhaps? Or you sing, I have no doubt.’ The question seemed automatic, as though he took it for granted that she was merely being coy.

‘No, I play no musical instruments, Your Grace, and my singing is of the kind better heard at a distance.’

Like bagpipes—ideally with several intervening glens.

‘You are too modest, I am sure, Miss Wingate.’ He was still frowning in the direction of the maze, she noted. And finding it impossible to believe that I do not have the full set of desirable ladylike attributes. The Duke’s opinion of her must be sinking lower with every discovery about her true nature. Excellent. I will seem so very ineligible that he will not even recognise Papa’s hopes of throwing us together.

‘I do not indulge in false modesty, Your Grace. I am aware of my strengths and abilities and quite clear about my weaknesses.’ That earned her a very penetrating look. Perhaps young ladies were not supposed to discuss weaknesses. Now that she thought of it, there was a possible double entendre there. Or was she sensitive about it because her worst weakness had most definitely not been the kind of thing one discussed in polite society? ‘Shall we walk to the maze and see whether your sisters and brother have discovered the way to its heart?’

‘Most certainly.’ He offered his arm again as she stood, the frown lines between his brows relaxing as they moved to a safer topic. ‘Is it a complex pattern?’

‘Very, Your Grace.’ It was quite trying, being so comprehensively disapproved of. How difficult for him, but, of course, he could not ignore the attention due to a bishop living in the neighbourhood. Verity found a bland smile from somewhere. ‘The summer house in the centre is very charming, but it rarely receives visitors, the maze is so devious.’ She did not look up at her tower as they passed it. She doubted very much if her friends had interrupted their work to come to the windows, but they might have been distracted by the children and she had no desire to explain her ‘reading circle’ to the Duke if he saw a collection of female faces looking down at him.

‘And here is the entrance. It is a very ancient maze, Tudor, my father believes, judging by the thick trunks of the yews in the hedges. I can hear the young people and it does not sound as though they have reached the centre yet.’

‘One can normally hear them all too clearly, Miss Wingate,’ the Duke said drily. But there was a hint of affection there, a touch of amusement in the deep voice, and Verity felt a sudden, unwilling, twinge of liking.

He does love them after all, she thought. Perhaps there is a warm heart under that starchy exterior, even if it is only for his badly behaved siblings.

‘Their mama believes in a very liberal approach to child-rearing, I understand?’