The Duchess Wager Read online

  Margot was tempted to interrupt – she even knew what little sly joke she would make to put a smile on Fitz’s lips – but she so hated any conversation about improvement, and her father was more likely to dismiss her than to let her break up his soliloquy on why Fitz should invest in canals.

  It was just as Geoff had been with his cotton mill. The mill wasn’t the first project that replaced Margot as the object of Geoff’s fascination, but it had lasted the longest. He had spent so much time on that mill – researching it, talking about it, overseeing its construction, checking in on its operations – that Margot hardly saw him, and when she did, it was all he spoke about. She was more jealous of the mill than of any love affair he could have had.

  Margot decided to be charitable and sit with Hugh, instead, who was beginning to look quite miserable. “Fear not,” she murmured. “You know she just needs to get it out of her system, like Valentina when she hasn’t had her nap.”

  Hugh responded with a little helpless shrug. “I know it, and yet…”

  “And yet you love her.” A snake of envy slithered across Margot’s stomach. She dismissed it; no matter that Geoff’s love for her hadn’t lasted past their honeymoon. She’d had a nice friendship with her husband, which was more than many wives could say, and if his worst crime had been to spend too much time on a mill, she supposed she didn’t have much to gripe about.

  She absolutely refused to turn bitter simply because her sister had better luck.

  Margot was glad of the distraction when Fitz finally broke away from her father. Moving beside Lord Gresham’s seat on the settee – where they could all hear him plain as day – he cleared his throat. “I had an interesting letter from my man in town today. He wrote with news of Miss Dawes.”

  Beside her, Hugh groaned. Meanwhile, Alice perked up, all innocence as she asked eagerly, “Oh? Good news, I hope? I do worry about her so.”

  Lord Gresham’s face already matched his red hair in hue.

  Fitz’s gray eyes flicked to Margot, as if asking one last time whether this was really what she meant him to do. She met him with what she hoped was a look of encouragement.

  Fitz unfolded the letter. “Miss Dawes means to publish an account of…the affair…in the Times.” He paused, glancing at Lord Gresham, who was doing his best not to grimace.

  Good, Margot thought. He deserves it.

  From the other side of the room, Lady Gresham said, “Of course she has every right. Do you have any details?”

  “My man managed to get the copy she submitted to the editors. I’m afraid it contains all sorts of claims, including that you cried off at the altar, not before the ceremony began; that as much as you talk about race horses, you get every fact wrong; that your secretary must read every correspondence aloud to you because you are yourself illiterate; and that Ambley Park is close to bankruptcy, so you and whichever Lady Gresham is attached to you will need to flee to France to outrun your creditors.”

  Margot hadn’t read the final letter that Alice had submitted and gasped a little at the last claim. Her father bellowed, “For shame! I didn’t think Miss Dawes capable of such a thing.”

  Lord Gresham was still as a rock and red as a lobster. “I didn’t expect it, but I deserve it, of course. She wished us the best, but after a few days, she would feel differently. I’m only glad she limited her attacks to myself and didn’t say anything about Lady Gresham.”

  “It’s nothing but slander!” Lord Eastley insisted. “If I were you, I would call her father out to settle this score. She can’t go publishing such rubbish in the papers without consequence.”

  Margot had seen her father angry before – it was from him that she had learned to bluster from bliss to fury in a matter of seconds – but never had he spoken one word in encouragement of duels. His opinion had always been that they were illegal, old-fashioned, and in poor taste. She stared at him in disbelief. “She can publish whatever she likes. Lord Gresham has ruined her reputation; why shouldn’t she retaliate?”

  “He’s hardly ruined her reputation,” Lord Eastley shot back. “She is still a genteel lady of good standing. If she publishes this, then her reputation will be ruined, that’s for sure. Who would want to marry a woman that spiteful?”

  “You’re right. This will ruin her.” This from Lord Gresham, whose face was now as pale as the snow outside. For a moment, he stared at nothing. Then he popped from his seat. “I shall write my own account to the Times, verifying everything Miss Dawes claims. It may hurt our reputation, but it will save her from her own folly.”

  He was a scraggly man with hair too red, and he wore only a fine evening suit, yet for a moment, Margot could see him as an armored knight, off to protect the wronged woman.

  Even though he was the one who had wronged her.

  Margot turned her attention to Alice, putting all her energy in silently urging her sister to give up the act. She hardly needed to try; Alice beamed at Lord Gresham.

  “Oh, I see now your heart is so good, my lord! Would you mind terribly if I broke all rules of propriety and gave you a hug?” Alice didn’t wait for an answer – neither from poor Lord Gresham nor her husband nor Lady Gresham – but threw her arms around the man’s neck. “You see, Miss Dawes is my best friend, so I had to avenge her in some way. Never did I imagine you would throw yourself on the sword in her name.”

  Free of her embrace, Lord Gresham looked merely bewildered. “I don’t understand. You wrote the account in the Times?”

  “There is no account in the Times!”

  “Oh Alice,” Lady Eastley sighed.

  Fitz handed Lord Gresham the letter while Alice explained. “I wrote the letter and handed it to His Grace this afternoon. It’s all made up, you see. We wanted to make you suffer, as poor Miss Dawes has. Now that you have proven how noble you are, we may put all this behind us and be friends again.”

  “We?” Lord Gresham echoed.

  “I’m afraid it was a group effort,” Fitz said, slapping a hand against his friend’s arm. “Even Annabelle helped us out.”

  Lady Gresham came to stand next to her husband now with a mischievous smile. “The part about running off to France was my idea.”

  Margot stood, too, if only to confess to her part in the scheme. “Do you think you’ll recover, Lord Gresham?”

  He looked from one to the other for a long moment, and Margot feared perhaps they had really crossed a line.

  Then Lord Gresham laughed. He shook Fitz’s hand, dotted little bows to Alice and Margot, and finally pressed a kiss to his wife’s hand. “It’s like when schoolboys knock their friends down, I suppose. Now we can call ourselves even.”

  “Exactly!” Alice exclaimed. “Lord Windemere tried to stop me from doing it, but you see, now the whole atmosphere will be festive.”

  “It already was festive,” their mother said from her corner. “I, for one, protest your actions, but as all’s well that ends well, that will be the sum of what I say on the subject.”

  Lord Eastley, for his part, was glowering at the whole group, as if he couldn’t quite figure out what had happened. Finally, he shook his head. “Lord Gresham, if I may give you a piece of advice? Never have daughters.”

  The group laughed at this, and her father poured everyone another round of sherry, yet Margot couldn’t quite smile along. The letter had done its job; they had avenged Miss Dawes, and she truly believed Lord Gresham had only the best intentions in his heart. But where Margot had expected anger from Lord Gresham, she hadn’t anticipated the fury from her father. She might have predicted he would dismiss the letter as silly; she never would have guessed he would respond with such violent anger.

  Why it should bother her so, Margot couldn’t say; yet she couldn’t shake the sensation that something was wrong with her father’s reaction.

  Alice interrupted Margot’s ruminating. “Margot, could you please request that my husband put that book away and join the conversation?”

  Lost in her own thoughts, Margot hadn’t noticed that Hugh had started scribbling in a little notebook. Now he straightened, grimaced guiltily, and slipped the pad and pencil back into his pocket. Margot said, “Apparently, your wife still isn’t speaking to you.”

  Hugh tried, “I would be happy to join the conversation, Lady Windemere.”

  “Margot, please inform my husband I meant he should speak to someone other than me.”

  Margot turned to Lady Gresham, who was observing it all with an amused smile. “Lady Gresham, would you be so kind as to inform my sister that she should handle her own communications?”

  Alice’s eyes flashed with humor at this. Lady Gresham carried the game forward with, “Lord Windemere, would you be a dear and inform your wife that her sister is no longer willing to be her communications conduit?”

  This was enough to make Alice laugh, and Hugh joined in happily. Lady Gresham turned to Margot. “Lady Wickham, if I may, you’re looking a little piqued. Fitz, why don’t you take her for a walk to escape the crowd of this room?”

  Margot was alarmed at the observation; she had just been smiling at Hugh, after all. Yet she couldn’t object. For one, she was feeling piqued and wouldn’t mind an escape from all the polite banter. For another, Fitz had already risen, his friendly eyes resting on her.

  “I haven’t yet seen Bleneccle Manor’s gallery,” he said. “Perhaps you would be so good as to show me?”

  He didn’t offer his arm, and Margot didn’t take it. They kept so appropriate a distance from each other that no matron of Almack’s London ballroom would whisper. Yet Margot could feel him beside her during the whole walk from the drawing room to the back of
the castle, where their finer artwork hung on display.

  “Papa hasn’t yet added on a modern wing of the house, so our gallery is rather makeshift, I’m afraid,” Margot apologized. “This was originally the great room where the lord presided over his feasts.”

  Now the room was large and empty, save for the artwork on the walls. Most of the paintings were family portraits, accumulated through the years, though the section nearest the door featured French paintings her father had acquired on his trips to London throughout her childhood. The servants, not anticipating any visitors to the gallery, had lit only the wall sconces, scattering dark webs of shadows through the hall.

  It was horribly romantic, the perfect place for a secret tryst.

  Not that Margot expected Fitz harbored any romantic intentions towards her. Not that she wanted him to.

  As if rebuking her thoughts, Fitz dutifully turned to consider the painting beside the door, an interpretation of Samson and Delilah. “Do you miss living in this castle when you return south?” he asked. “I daresay it is quite different from…what is the name of your country home?”

  “Corinium Park.” Whenever she pictured her house, it was as she’d first seen it in her marital carriage. She had squeezed Geoff’s hand in excitement until he’d cried off in pain. Their house rose from the center of a demure, green parkland, a white stone monument that sparkled when the sun decided to shine. Unlike the circular staircases and crenellations of Bleneccle Manor, Corinium Park was all stately lines and rectangular windows surveying open space.

  Now she felt a pang of homesickness. Her little dominion of Wickhamshire was bustling and grand compared to the quiet winters of Bleneccle Manor. How she loved to spend an afternoon in the village, delivering food to the cottages and visiting with the tradesmen.

  Margot realized she missed it.

  “Corinium Park is very different,” she answered Fitz. “I loved this castle growing up. It has so many nooks and crannies for mischief.”

  He moved along to the next painting. “Will you have to return to Corinium Park soon?”

  Ah, the question most likely to plunge her into gloom. Yet, at least for that moment, Margot almost wished she were already there. Oh, she could do without Mrs. Preston’s brusque household updates and Mr. Robbins’s demands about the estate, but to visit with her tenants and hear their good country sense – that would be a treat.

  “I suppose so. We’ve been gone since November. Of course, my steward hardly needs me to keep things running, but I did miss showering everyone with their Christmas gifts.”

  Fitz gave her a rather queer look at this, as if he didn’t quite know what to make of it.

  Oh, how Margot wished she could straighten herself out, so she didn’t say odd things like this in the middle of a perfectly nice conversation. She changed the subject. “Lord Gresham took the letter in stride, don’t you think?”

  “I knew he would.” There was a touch of obstinate loyalty in Fitz’s tone that warmed Margot. Then those gray eyes settled on her again. “Do you feel better, having exacted your revenge?”

  Had her father uttered the words, Margot’s hackles would have gone up in defense. Indeed, her first reaction was to bristle, before she realized Fitz wasn’t belittling her; he was simply asking how she felt.

  And she realized she felt defensive because now that the excitement of the letter was over, her spirits were just as low as ever.

  “I’m glad to know Lord Gresham isn’t resting on his laurels,” she said carefully. She didn’t want to get into the murky state of her emotions with Fitz. He was friendly and handsome and witty, but none of that meant he wanted to hear about the strange murmurings of her heart. Yet somehow, Margot’s mouth prattled on without her. “Alice drummed it all up to lift my spirits, you know. I suppose she thought some mischief would be enough to return me to my old self.”

  The words out in the air, Margot resisted the urge to clap a hand over her mouth in horror. She risked a glance at Fitz, who had turned from the paintings to regard her fully. He really was so tall, yet no part of his presence was threatening. Even as he listened to an addled widow confess to ugly emotions.

  “Whenever I have been low,” he said slowly, “I’ve had friends with similar inclinations. A gentleman can get up to all sorts of mischief. Yet no amount of ale or gambling or boxing has ever shaken me of low spirits. For me, the only trick is to set myself a goal, and then to work hard to achieve it.”

  Margot’s thoughts trailed on the image of Fitz in some pub. She couldn’t picture it. He was too composed, always prepared with the perfect polite response, to descend into hell dens.

  “I don’t mean to preach morals, though it may sound that way,” he continued. “It’s just that achieving something is so much more powerful than sulking. And mischief, in the end, is only an active form of sulking.”

  Catching up to the content of his advice, Margot turned the idea over in her head. It was fine and dandy for a duke to set goals. He had a seat in the House of Lords and dozens of entailments.

  She was a mere lady. She had children to raise, to be sure, but beyond that, Margot was largely a symbol. Symbols didn’t need goals.

  Yet as soon as she dismissed the idea, it rebounded back. Why shouldn’t she have goals? Why shouldn’t she do as much as Geoff had, if not more?

  So what if most people saw her simply as a statuette of good breeding. Margot could seize that and use it to her advantage.

  All she needed was a vision for what she wanted to accomplish.

  Chapter Seven

  Fitz wished he could take back the last five minutes. His thoughts – so earnest in his head – had tumbled out into the world sounding as pompous as could be, and now Margot was staring at him with wide, blank eyes as if he were the biggest idiot in the world.

  No, her eyes weren’t quite blank. There was a spark to her expression that hinted at a million thoughts rushing behind them, but she chose not to say any of them. Which meant they were all unkind. At his expense. And well they should be. Had he really just spouted to her the virtues of setting a goal?

  Fitz’s mind raced for a way to fix this. Margot was too lovely to be subjected to his bumbling. He would spoil their friendship if he carried on like this.

  Oh, he was adept at catering to overdeveloped egos or wasting hours listening to a man unburden his soul. He knew how to read a room and how to play the cards dealt by whomever he needed in his corner; it was the natural talent that made him so effective as the Diplomatic Duke.

  But add emotions – real, raw feelings, especially those of a woman – into the mix, and he was at a loss.

  Fitz had been brought up to believe emotions were mere excuses invoked by the weak to slip out of their duties. His mother certainly had never let him show any tears, nor laughter. He’d learned over the years that not everyone took this view. The first time a woman had cried before him – Loretta Billings, a young lady dancing with him at a house party – he’d advised her to tuck away her tears before she embarrassed herself, and she’d slapped him. By the time he was twenty-two and had installed the actress Sylvie Stanton as his mistress, he’d learned to be less callous, yet when Sylvie cried to him over her father’s death, he’d only managed to make her angry, not cheer her up.

  Now here was Margot, not even close to tears, and Fitz quaked. She had not revealed much of her heart – in fact, Fitz suspected from a little flame in her eyes that she regretted saying as much as she had. Still, in what she did say, Fitz could feel her soul churning with something more than he could identify. And even though he knew he couldn’t console her, he was overcome with a desperate need to do so.

  Hence, his daft suggestion that she set a goal.

  The woman before him had already mothered two children. She didn’t need a lecture on managing one’s life. She needed empathy.

  Margot still stood there, staring at his idiocy. The torchlight sparkled off her hair and eyes, making even her gray gown seem golden. Of course, in the moment when he should be finding something better to say, he would be distracted by her beauty. He knew better than to comment on it; Margot wasn’t the kind of vain woman who would be cheered out of grief by a sonnet on the perfect pink curve of her lips, though they were rosy and slender, and he imagined wonderful to kiss.