“Tell me about it, Mr. Wicks.”
“I wrote to them, my lady. I had to because I believed back in April that the earl, er, your husband of three weeks now, wouldn’t marry you and that the Americans would inherit and thus I had to write to them and tell them of their probable good fortune, and now they’re here. They never wrote me back, they never came to see me in London. They just went directly to Yorkshire, to Chase Par
k.”
“How very odd. How did they know where the estate is, I wonder? You did say that Uncle Grant is dead. He would have known, surely, but his wife?”
Mr. Wicks shook his head distractedly. “I don’t know, but I do know, Duchess, that I must leave now, today, no later than tomorrow morning. I must go to Chase Park and I must explain to them that there is nothing for them, nothing at all. It is a dreadful coil. Why didn’t I simply trust you to bring his lordship about? I’m a dolt, Duchess, a bloody dolt.”
He stopped cold, shocked that he’d spoken so, with such unplanned emotion.
She merely smiled. “Perhaps you should have waited, but you didn’t. Indeed, you did what you believed the proper thing. No matter, Mr. Wicks.”
“I’m relieved the earl isn’t here and thus, perhaps, if the good Lord still believes me an obedient servant, the earl won’t find out about it.”
“It wouldn’t matter if he were here or if he did find out. You did what you believed was right, Mr. Wicks. Don’t chide yourself further.”
She rose and shook out her skirts. “Well,” she said more to herself than to Mr. Wicks. “Life does dish up odd things on one’s plate.” She turned to him, holding out her hand. “I will come with you, Mr. Wicks. Please don’t worry. We will face the dreaded Americans together. I wonder if Marcus would declare the name Wilhelmina as ugly as Josephina.”
* * *
Marcus Wyndham, VIII earl of Chase, arrived at the Wyndham townhouse in Berkeley Square on the twenty-sixth of June.
Nettles took his lordship’s cloak and hat. “My lord,” he said with more formality than before, for now there was appropriate substance in his lordship’s pocketbook, no longer just the title, “her ladyship left with Mr. Wicks for Chase Park just yesterday morning. She was accompanied by Badger and that red-haired maid of hers, Maggie.”
“I see,” Marcus said. “Spears,” he said, turning to his valet, who appeared to be closely regarding the elegant baseboard molding in the entrance hall, “do see to our things. I wonder if there is anyone here to prepare the meals since Badger went with my . . . went with the Duchess.”
“I have instructed Mrs. Hurley to resume the responsibilities, my lord. Her ladyship told me to see to it quickly since it was possible that you would be arriving here shortly. If I may say so, my lord, her ladyship has seen to everything in a very nice way—so considerate she is—if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“No, not at all, Nettles.”
Heartened, the butler added, “She is a very restrained lady, my lord, allowing no familiarities, as if anyone would ever attempt such a thing in any case. Now, my lord, would you like a glass of port, perhaps, in the library?”
Marcus took his port and went instead to the master bedchamber at the end of the corridor on the second floor. It was a massive room, hung with dark draperies, spread with even darker carpets. The furnishings were very old, but they sparkled with wax. He wondered if his wife’s meddling hands had rubbed in the lemon wax.
He said to Spears, who was gently folding his cravats and placing them in a drawer in the dresser, “I wonder at the timing of all this.”
“Timing is an unpredictable thing, my lord, or so I’ve always believed.”
“I wonder why she left for Chase Park with Mr. Wicks, of all people.”
“Ah, my lord, I do have a letter, given to me by Mr. Nettles, who was given it himself by the Duchess to give to me and finally for me to present to you. You understand?”
“Certainly, Spears. Where is this letter that couldn’t have been given directly to me but had to go from the Duchess to Nettles to you and then to me?”
“It is here, my lord.”
“A circuitous route always arouses suspicions,” Marcus said as he tore open the envelope. He read, cursed, then laughed. “Well, this is very interesting. It seems the American Wyndhams are at Chase Park, for Mr. Wicks, doing his duty, mind you, wrote them and told them of their perhaps good fortune come June sixteenth. They came to England and now they are at Chase Park, arriving evidently precisely on the sixteenth. The Duchess and Mr. Wicks have flown after them. Ah, yet again, she meddles.”
“She is your wife, my lord. It is not meddling, it is the duty of a wife to see to her husband’s interests whilst he is unable to see to them himself.”
Marcus gave his valet a grunt, then began to pull off his clothes. “I would like a bath, Spears.”
“Yes, my lord.”
He had one leg out of his trousers when he said, “I wonder why they went to Chase Park. Surely Mr. Wicks didn’t tell them that was also part of their probable inheritance.”
“It is a mystery, my lord.”