“And Josephine,” Tess said. “Josie is fifteen, and still in the schoolroom.”
Tess noticed that the duke was already smiling at Josie, which was a sign of his good manners. She loathed it when men acted as if they were stuck by glue to Annabel’s side and only gave Josie the scantest glance.
“I’d rather you didn’t kiss my hand,” Josie said briskly.
“May I introduce a friend of mine?” the duke said, acting as if he didn’t hear Josie’s comment, although he made no effort to kiss her hand. “Garret Langham, the Earl of Mayne.”
Annabel gave Mayne a blithely appreciative smile, as if she were a four-year-old being handed a piece of birthday cake. There was nothing more to Annabel’s taste than a man in possession of all his limbs and a title.
Mayne smiled back with something of the same admiration, although Tess thought that his emotion likely had little to do with Annabel’s forefathers.
The gentlemen completed their greetings, and the duke turned back to her. “Miss Essex, since none of you are likely to have interest in these—” he waved his hand—“these playthings, shall we retire to the public rooms? I’m afraid that my housekeeper will likely need a short period of time to ready bedchambers for you, but I imagine your maids will assist.”
Tess felt a blush rising up her collarbone. “We haven’t brought any maids with us.”
“In that case,” her guardian said without even blinking, we can employ these four young women for the purpose, if that would be acceptable.” He indicated the four nursemaids, still lined up against the wall, their eyes wide as ha’pennies. “I’m certain the housekeeper can train them in their duties readily enough.”
“You’re in need of a chaperone,” Mayne put in, with a slanting glance at the duke. “Now that you’re no longer running a nursery. Tonight, Rafe.”
Clearly the thought hadn’t crossed their guardian’s mind. “Dammit, I’ll have to write a note to Lady Clarice,” he said, running a hand through his wild hair, “and ask her to pay me a visit. That’s if she’ll come after last time; I think I was a trifle rude to her.”
“In your cups, were you?” Mayne asked.
A wry grimace curled their guardian’s mouth. “I threw her out, with luck not bodily. Can’t really remember.” He suddenly realized that Tess and the girls were all staring at him and gave them a smile that hadn’t a whit of remorse in it. “Now my wards will think I’m a sot.”
“To know you is to love you,” the earl said, throwing him a sarcastic grin. “My dear Misses Essex, the evening when your guardian isn’t clutching a bumper of brandy will be the day hell blooms with roses.”
“Lady Clarice’s land runs parallel to ours,” Holbrook said to Tess, ignoring his friend’s comment. “I daresay if I send a pretty enough note, she’ll forgive me since we are in desperate circumstances. You can’t possibly spend the night under my roof without a chaperone.”
But Mayne wasn’t to be silenced. “The lady’s a widow, and she has an eye for your guardian,” he told the girls. “I do believe she’s hoping that one day she’ll find him so deep in his cups that he doesn’t notice that she’s calling the banns. It’s too bad for her that Rafe doesn’t show his liquor.”
“Nonsense,” the duke said gruffly, sweeping his hair about so that he looked even more of a lunatic.
“Doesn’t bother her that she has ten years on Rafe,” Mayne continued blithely. “Lady Clarice has an optimistic soul, for all that her own son is almost Rafe’s own age.”
“Maitland is considerably younger than I,” the duke said rather curtly.
“He’s in his twenties,” Mayne said, “and that makes Lady Clarice at least five years older than you.”
Tess felt rather than heard an agitated little sound from Imogen, at the same second that her own heart sunk. They were hoping to wean Imogen from her hopeless adoration of Lord Maitland, and finding him next door wasn’t the best start. “Are you by any chance referring to Draven Maitland, Your Grace?” she asked, obedient to an imploring glance from Imogen.
“So you know Maitland, do you?” It didn’t look to Tess as if their guardian thought much more of Lord Maitland than she did. “Likely he’ll accompany his mother then. I’ll ask them both to join us for supper. Perhaps you and your sisters would like to take a short rest before the evening meal?”
“That would be pleasant,” Tess said. Imogen was grinning like a fool. Tess saw the duke’s eyes take in her grin, but he said nothing.
“The rose suite will do until your chambers are readied.” Holbrook held out his arm, and Tess took it, rather awkwardly.
The Englishmen were so unlike what she had expected! They were—formidable. But Englishmen weren’t supposed to be formidable. Everything she’d ever heard about English gentlemen suggested that they were willowy creatures, liable to sneeze and blow away. Oh, there were exceptions, of course. Lord Maitland, for one, had a sturdy enough figure.
Their new guardian didn’t fit the mold either. He was not ducal in the least. He wasn’t dressed in satin or velvet. Instead, he was wearing trousers so old that she could see the seams on the side, especially where they strained over his belly, and a white shirt that didn’t have a bit of satin on it. Its sleeves were even turned up, as if he were about to set to work in the stables.
There was nothing aristocratic about his voice, either. It was nice enough, but gruff and brusque. And he had lines around his eyes, for all he couldn’t be more than thirty-five. Dissipated, that’s what he looked. Not a womanizer: Tess could spot one of those a mile off, and though he looked at all of them with interest, there wasn’t a spark of appreciation of their womanhood in his eyes.
And yet, for all that wild hair and dissipated face and ancient clothing, for all of that—he wasn’t frightening.
Tess felt a hard knot in her chest begin to loosen, just a trifle.
This burly man who had hired four nursemaids for four little girls and was never without a bumper of brandy…he wasn’t someone to fear.
Tess looked down at the worn linen of his shirtsleeve and said, “I want to thank you, Your Grace, for accepting this guardianship.” She swallowed, but it had to be said. “My father was an improvident man, and sometimes he traded upon acquaintance in a way that must create a burden.”
He looked genuinely surprised. “Don’t think twice about it, m’dear.”
“I’m quite serious,” Tess persisted. “I—”
“So am I,” the duke said. “I must be named guardian in at least twenty wills, Miss Essex. I am a duke, after all, and I’ve never seen that I had a reason to refuse such a request.”
“Oh,” Tess said, shocked to the bone. It seemed her father wasn’t the only man to take advantage of a slender acquaintance with Holbrook.
He patted her hand, for all the world as if he were a middle-aged uncle. “Not to fear, Miss Essex. I’m certain we can figure out this guardianship business amongst us. It should be an easy enough business to find a governess for young Josie. Finding a chaperone that we can bear to live with might take a bit more thinking. But there’s nothing to worry about.”
To Tess’s mind, worry had been her sole emotion of last few months, most of which had been occupied by squabbling over the possibility that their guardian was a reasonable, kindly man versus a half-cracked horseman. And to each and every nervous question Tess had said stoutly, “I’m certain he will be an estimable gentleman. After all, Papa chose him with careful forethought.”
Lord knows that wasn’t the truth. On his deathbed, Papa had grasped her hand, and said, “Not to worry, Tess. I’ve an optimal man to look after you all. Asked him just after poor old Monkton up and died last year. I knew Holbrook years ago.”
“Why has he never visited, Papa?”
“Never met him again,” her father had said, looking so white against the pillow that Tess’s heart had clenched with fear. “Not to worry, lass. I’ve seen his name mentioned time and again in Sporting Magazine. He’ll take good care of
Wanton, Bluebell, and the rest. Said he would. Wrote me as much. And I sent him Starling to seal the bargain.”
“I’m sure he will, Papa,” Tess had said, putting down her sweet, feckless Papa’s hand with a loving squeeze since he seemed to have drifted off to sleep. So this duke would take good care of Papa’s beloved horseflesh—but what of his daughters?
He opened his eyes again though. “You’ll be right and tight with Holbrook, Tess. Take care of them for me, won’t you?”
She picked up his hand again hastily, trying to force back the tears crowding her throat.
“Feel as if I’m looking at you through a snowstorm,” he had said, his voice just a whisper of sound.
“Oh, Papa,” Tess whispered. “I do love you.”
He shook his head, obviously gathering himself. “I’ll be seeing your mother, I’ve no doubt.” There was a little smile on his face. Papa was always very good at looking forward to a happy event. Sometimes she thought he was happier in the week before a big race, when he had something to anticipate, than when he’d won a race. Not that he won very often.
“Yes, Papa,” she whispered, brushing the tears away as they coursed down her cheeks.
“My lass,” he said, and she didn’t know whether he was talking of her or her mother. Then, “Don’t forget that Wanton likes apple-mash.” And, again, “Take care of them for me, Tess?”
“Of course I will, Papa. I’ll inform His Grace immediately on our arrival about Wanton’s weak stomach.”
“I didn’t mean that, Tessa,” her father said, and this smile was for her, not for her mother. “Annabel’s too beautiful, you know. And sweet Josie.” There was silence for a moment, then he said, “Maitland’s not right for Imogen. Wild thing, that boy.”
There were tears running down Tess’s wrists.
“You’re…” His voice faltered, then he said, rather dreamily. “Tess. Those apples…”
But he had gone to sleep, then. And though she and her sisters had told him of the stables until they were hoarse, and Josie had brought a bowl of steaming apple-mash into the bedchamber, thinking it might arouse him, he didn’t wake. After a few days, he slipped away in the midst of the night.
The funeral passed like a gray dream. Their plump cousin, who had inherited the estate, appeared with a clucking wife and two maiden aunts in tow; Tess did her best to make them comfortable in a house that hadn’t even one decent feather bed. When the duke’s secretary finally arrived to announce their fate, she managed not to scream questions about his master but waited patiently. When that secretary spent the first full week of his visit arranging for their father’s horses to be sent to England with all possible comfort, her questions seemed unnecessary. The horses left long before they did. Could their unknown guardian have made it clearer where his priorities lay?
So even as she reassured Josie, and told Imogen to stop talking of Draven Maitland or she would strangle her with the only ribbon Annabel had left, Tess had worried, and worried, until the lump of grief in her chest seemed to turn to permanent stone.
She’d just as soon have nothing to do with a horse-mad male, ever again. It was galling to find that their futures were utterly dependent on just such a man. It made her think fierce thoughts of her darling papa, and that made her feel guilty, and guilt made her feel irritable.
Looking at the Duke of Holbrook now, there was no question that their guardian was indeed horse-mad. With that hair and clothing, he was probably garden-variety mad and no need for the adjective.
But he was kind, too. And not lecherous.
He didn’t seem to have their father’s easy way of ignoring their comforts. He certainly had no obligation to invite them to live in his house, nor to treat them like real relatives.
Perhaps she’d been too hasty. Perhaps—just perhaps—all men weren’t mad in the same ways.
Chapter
3
A few hours later, Tess lay under the damp cloth that the duke’s housekeeper herself had placed over her eyes. The faint smell of lemons drifted to her nose. She could hear the sounds of a large household around her. It wasn’t the echoing, empty sound of her father’s house, marked only by the harsh rap of boots on the bare floor (Papa had sold the carpets long ago), but a faint hum that added to the smell of furniture rubbed with lemon oil, and sheets dried in the sun, and a mattress that had been turned once a season.
“It’s time for a family council,” said a cheerful voice. The side of the bed dipped as Annabel sat down.
Tess lifted up the cloth over her eyes and peered at her sister. “I only just lay down,” she objected.
“No, you didn’t,” her sister retorted. “You’ve been lying there like a plum pudding under a steaming cloth for at least two hours, and we must talk before dressing for the evening meal. Here come Josie and Imogen.”
The girls climbed up onto the bed, just as if they were in Tess’s bedchamber at home, where they’d spent many an evening curled under the covers so as to stay warm, talking endlessly of their future, and their papa, and their horses.
“All right,” Tess murmured, yawning.
“I shall marry him,” Annabel announced, once they were all settled.
“Who?” Tess asked. She put the cloth on the bedside table and pushed herself upright against the pillows.
“The duke, of course!” Annabel said. “One of us must become the duchess obviously, since he doesn’t seem to have one at hand. Duchess of Holbrook. The man isn’t married, although—”
“Holbrook may well be promised in marriage,” Imogen pointed out. “Look at Draven.” Lord Maitland had been promised in marriage for two years or more, without showing the slightest interest in progressing toward the altar.
“I doubt it,” Annabel said. “And if not, I shall marry him. That way, my husband can give each of you excellent dowries. Perhaps you won’t marry as well as I, since there are only eight dukes in all England, not counting the royal dukes. But we shall find titled men for each of you.”
“What a sacrifice,” Josie said acidly. “I suppose you read all of Debrett’s in order to discover the names of those eight dukes?”
“I shall steel myself to the task,” Annabel said. “And mind you, given our guardian’s looks, I do consider it a sacrifice. The man will be positively potbellied before he’s fifty, if he doesn’t watch out.”
Imogen rolled her eyes, but Josie leaped in before her. “Sacrifice, Annabel? You’d marry an eighty-year-old man if you could make yourself a duchess! Your Grace!” she added for good measure.
“I most certainly would not!” Annabel retorted. Then she laughed. “Well, only if the man was very, very wealthy.”
“You’re naught more than a money-grubbing flirt,” Josie observed. “And who’s to say that this duke is any richer than Papa was? After all, Papa was a viscount, but his title was naught more than tin when it came to his pocket!”
“If Holbrook has no money, I shan’t marry him,” Annabel said with a delicate shudder. “I’d rather slay myself than marry a man as out at the elbows as Papa was. But don’t be foolish, Josie. Look at this house! Holbrook is obviously deep in the pockets.”
“Don’t be disrespectful of your father,” Tess broke in. “Annabel, truly, the duke may well be affianced, and it would be best not to think in such an improper fashion of the man who was kind enough to agree to be our guardian.”
Annabel raised one eyebrow and took a small mirror from her reticule. “Perhaps I’ll make him regret that arrangement, then,” she said, rubbing her lips with a scrap of Spanish paper that she’d bought in the village before they left Scotland.
“You’re revolting,” Josie said.
“And you’re a squib,” Annabel said. “I’m being practical. One of us has to marry, and immediately. Imogen has been telling us for two years now that she means to marry Maitland, and Tess has never made the slightest push to marry anyone—so that leaves me. One of us has to marry and take the others to her house. That’s what we always sa
id.”
“Tess could marry anyone she chose!” Josie said stoutly. “She’s the most beautiful of us all. Don’t you agree, Imogen?”
Imogen nodded, but she had her arms clasped around her knees, and she was clearly paying not a whit of attention to the conversation. “She may marry anyone, other than Draven, of course,” she said dreamily. “Just think, I might see him in a matter of hours…minutes really.”
Annabel ignored her comment, which was pretty much the way the girls had acted every time Imogen mentioned Maitland’s name for the past two years. “I agree with you as to Tess’s beauty,” she told Josie, “but men aren’t prone to marry penniless girls who show no interest. Yet I am interested in marriage. Very interested.”
“In the institution, not the man!” Josie retorted.
Annabel shrugged. “Imogen is romantic enough for the rest of us. It’s Papa’s fault. He made me keep the books for all these years, and now numbers float before my eyes every time I think about matrimony.”
“He didn’t precisely make you keep the books,” Tess put in, a trifle wearily. She was tired of defending their father from Annabel’s charges, but Josie took any criticism of their papa very badly. There was no way to sugarcoat the fact that their papa had discovered Annabel had a gift for figures at age thirteen and dumped the entire financial accounting of the estate on her slender shoulders.
“The important point is that I shan’t be keeping books any longer. I don’t want to think of numbers, or bills, or unpaid accounts ever again in my life. Thank goodness, men are silly enough to overlook my lack of dowry.”
“You could try for a little modesty,” Josie needled.
“You could try for a little maturity,” Annabel retorted. “I’m not being immodest. I’m simply being practical. One of us must marry, and I have the attributes that make men dazed enough to overlook lack of dowry. I’m not going to pretend to possess ladylike virtues that I don’t have in front of you three. It’s too late for that. If Papa truly wanted us to think like ladies, he wouldn’t have trained us to do exactly the opposite.”