Ravished in Rose: The Brothers Duke: Book Four Read online

  ‘I… Yes.’ Why was she going along with this? Why was she encouraging it? ‘Yes, I suppose it could.’

  ‘You’re meant to investigate me quite thoroughly, from what I’ve gathered. A sort of character assessment. You could decide if what you find fits you.’

  ‘... Yes.’

  ‘And how much do you charge?’

  Margaret, not knowing what else to do, told him. Henry nodded, as if they were exchanging commonplace information about the weather or the price of a bonnet. ‘And when should we meet next?’

  Was the meeting already over? Margaret leaned back, half-expecting to find the study adrift on a wide sea. ‘I… do you not wish to meet here?’

  ‘No. I wish to take you to the Menbrake Menagerie.’

  ‘The—the Menbrake Menagerie?’

  ‘Yes. That rather squalid little zoo. I want to take you there.’

  Perhaps she had fallen asleep at her desk. ‘I—I see.’

  ‘No. You don’t. But that’s all right.’ Henry rose. Margaret hurriedly rose as well. ‘Good day to you, Miss Barton. This conversation has exceeded every hope I had.’

  ‘Well, I—I’m glad.’

  ‘As am I.’ Henry bowed. Margaret curtseyed, almost sure she’d lose her balance. ‘On Thursday, then, at the menagerie? At six?’

  ‘At six.’

  ‘Wonderful.’ That smile again. ‘Good day. Don’t bother calling a maid—I’ll find my own way out.’

  And just like that, he was gone. The room still held the scent of him: paper, wood-smoke, the fresh green of a new apple. Margaret breathed him in, her eyes closed, before holding her hand to her mouth in abrupt shock.

  The things she had said! The things she had—had agreed to! And the feelings that arose when she looked at him, that strange, intoxicating mixture of curiosity, excitement, fear…

  Footsteps on the stairs brought her back to herself. She just about managed to sit back behind her desk, affecting an attitude of casual indifference when she felt anything but, when Cecile burst into the room without remembering to knock.

  ‘I’m so sorry, my lady. Forgive me.’ Cecile couldn’t have looked more contrite, but curiosity still gleamed in her eyes. ‘It was simply–oh, goodness. I didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘You were dreadfully rude.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I just—’

  ‘You could have hurt him very badly.’ Quite why she felt such a strong protective instinct towards a man she had only just spoken to five minutes ago was a matter for another time. ‘Very badly indeed.’

  ‘I’m truly sorry. Really. I am.’ Cecile’s mask of professionalism slipped, the anxious woman within revealed for a moment. ‘I do hope he didn’t hear.’

  ‘I… I doubt you were all that important to him.’ That was true enough. He hadn’t proposed to Cecile, at any rate. ‘Could you make me a very large pot of tea?’

  ‘Yes, my lady. Of course.’ Cecile curtseyed. ‘And—and will Mr. Duke be visiting again?’

  ‘I am to meet him at the Menbrake Menagerie on Thursday.’ Margaret paused, rather enjoying the look of shocked excitement on Cecile’s face. ‘But before that, Cecile, I’m going to have to drink a lot of tea.’

  After meeting Miss Margaret Barton, Henry’s day continued very pleasantly indeed. He bought a beautiful new pen from his favourite stationer’s shop, went to pat his preferred dog from the hungry group that skulked outside the butcher’s gleaming establishment, and spent an interesting three or four hours devising a new mathematical theory based on studying the leaves on the oaks at Sheraton Cemetery. Only when he was intellectually as well as physically exhausted did he return to the Duke townhouse, where dinner had finished and the evening’s relaxation had officially begun.

  Moment of pure domesticity were rare in the Duke townhouse, but they happened. Thomas was usually investigating his business interests further afield, but tonight he had Dorothea at his side and a newspaper in his hand. Robert and Charlotte were normally at Pembroke Manor or overseeing the construction of their new property, but tonight they were toasting chestnuts in the grate and looking pleasantly at one another. John and Anne were invariably at her workshop, apart from tonight–and even Edward, normally propping open the door of any of London’s pleasure-houses, was deep in a book with his feet up on a nearby chair.

  Henry observed his siblings and their wives with a frown, wondering when it would be best to tell them. When he’d arrived had seemed like the best moment, but everyone was chattering so vividly that he hadn’t found an appropriate point in the conversation to interrupt. Eventually, with a soft clearing of his throat that came to nothing, he began to fiddle with one of the picture frames on the wall.

  ‘Oh, Henry! I was going to ask you earlier, but you vanished. How was the meeting with Margaret?’ Anne turned to him with a smile, leaving her cup of hot milk momentarily discarded. ‘She’s terribly good at what she does.’

  ‘Apart from with you.’ John raised a loving eyebrow, laughing. ‘She was terribly set on you marrying Charles.’

  ‘And Charles wasn’t terribly set on marrying me, and I felt likewise.’ Anne gently batted her husband’s shoulder. ‘Well, Henry?’

  ‘It went excellently.’

  ‘Goodness. Really?’ Dorothea put down her embroidery with a smile. ‘That’s wonderful. Were you given a list of prospective ladies?’

  ‘Oh, no. I didn’t need that.’

  Thomas put down his newspaper. His voice was light, but his eyes betrayed concern. ‘You didn’t need it?’

  ‘No. I already know who I’m going to marry.’

  Edward slowly rose from his relaxed position in his chair. ‘You do?’ He looked at John and Robert, who looked back at him in mutual confusion. ‘And who would that be?’

  ‘Her.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Miss Barton.’ With a sigh of satisfaction, Henry stepped back from the adjusted picture frame. ‘I’m going to marry her.’

  The effect was immediate. As Dorothea, Charlotte and Anne looked at one another, their lips parted, the Duke brothers leaned forward in their respective chairs.

  ‘Miss Barton?’ Robert put down his toasting-fork, a chestnut still on it. ‘Miss Margaret Barton? The matchmaker?’

  ‘I don’t know any other Miss Bartons.’

  ‘And you’re going to marry her.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Robert looked at Thomas, John and Edward, who shrugged. ‘And… and when would that be?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The wedding.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Why were people always so interested in the least interesting parts of everything? ‘Why would I know that?’

  ‘Well–if there’s going to be a wedding…’

  ‘There’s going to be a wedding at some point, I imagine. Not that it’s all that important. I need to court her first.’

  The tension in the room lessened slightly, but not totally. Henry risked a look at his brothers, noting with a small sigh of disappointment that they were concealing smiles.

  They always did this. He made a decision related to some aspect of his social education, and they treated him like a child. Or worse, as if he were in some way incapable of understanding how the world worked. He understood completely, thank you very much—he simply disliked most of it.

  ‘I see.’ Thomas paused. ‘And where were you thinking of beginning the courtship?’

  ‘Menbrake Menagerie.’

  ‘Pardon?’ Edward stared. ‘That horrible little place with all of those sad animals?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re going to court Miss Barton there.’

  ‘Do I really have to repeat myself?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Edward leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. ‘It depends on if I’ve taken leave of my senses or not.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re acting as if it’s so surprising. I decided to visit a matchmaker to see about my marriage prospects, and the meeting went more optim
istically than hoped.’ Henry shrugged. ‘I’m sure it happens every day.’

  ‘I doubt very much that it happens quite like that every day. The world would have a severe shortage of matchmakers, for one thing. They’d keep being snapped up and thrown into wedded bliss.’ Robert glanced questioningly at Anne, whose eyes were wide with complete incomprehension. ‘Not to ask a personal question, Henry, but—but the meeting was chaperoned, I assume?’

  Henry had never been terribly good at lying, but he’d managed to become adept at telling half-truths over the years. ‘There was a maid. Cecile.’

  Anne audibly sighed with relief. ‘I see.’

  ‘She laughed at the idea.’

  ‘I imagine she did. I’ve never heard anything so silly.’ Thomas’s words were harsh, but his eyes betrayed real concern. ‘I assume Miss Barton treated the idea with the disdain it merited.’

  ‘She was very nice about it. She said she should probably do her job anyway, just in case. If I don’t find a bride who pleases me more than Miss Barton does, I’ll marry her.’ Henry smiled at his brother, quite enjoying the angry bafflement on his face. Thomas was very good at many things, but responding tactfully to unusual situations wasn’t one of them—his wife, Dorothea, was much better at it. However, Dorothea’s surprised face betrayed no higher feeling this time. ‘It’s really quite logical.’

  ‘You’re not to bother her, Henry. I mean it.’

  ‘Of course I’m not going to bother her.’ Henry frowned. Shock at his news was one thing, but lack of trust was quite another. ‘Please don’t behave as if I’m some sort of uncontrollable beast.’

  ‘I’m—I’m not. I’m sorry.’ Thomas’s shoulders sagged as he sighed. ‘It’s just… well…’

  ‘Something of a shock.’ Edward smiled. ‘In case you haven’t noticed.’

  He shouldn’t have told anyone. This sort of scene would have been better to avoid—being stared at, being all but poked and prodded and questioned as to one’s motives. Henry stared at the assembled company, frowning at them. ‘Nothing’s happened yet. There’s no need to be shocked.’

  ‘I assure you, it’s no more than commonplace shock.’ Anne smiled in a faintly placatory manner. ‘It’ll pass.’

  ‘Good. And don’t question my motives about taking her to the Menbrake Menagerie.’

  ‘Brother, dear, I must question your motives as to that if nothing else.’ Edward rolled his eyes. ‘If the lady’s ambivalent about you now, I would truly hate to see her after you’ve dragged her through a mile of suffering creatures.’

  ‘You can judge me, but you can’t question me.’

  ‘Understood.’ Edward smiled. Henry half-smiled back; Edward was much easier to rub along with than the rest of the Duke brothers, not least because he was the only unmarried one left. ‘I’m judging you heartily.’

  ‘That I can bear.’ Henry turned to the rest of the group, who were still looking at him with what he considered an unhealthy amount of surprise. ‘But not questioning. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes.’ Thomas held up his hands, while Robert and John looked anxiously at their respective wives as if they held the true answers to the conundrum. ‘We’ve heard you very clearly, Henry.’

  ‘Good. I’m going to bed.’

  As he closed the door, a hum of hushed conversation immediately began. Henry, never the best at divining the hidden motives of others or attempting to understand them, walked down the corridor and up the stairs to his bedroom without the slightest hint of curiosity as to who his family was so eagerly discussing.

  As he stood in his bedroom, waiting for his valet to come and take away his discarded boots, he found himself thinking about Margaret Barton. Well, not precisely–he was thinking about her, yes, but not entirely. The other part of his considerable brain was considering his own reaction to her, trying to puzzle it out in the manner of a game or trick. The effect she had on him, the quick, lightning flash of potent feeling that had risen in his breast at the sight of her, the sound of her–had he ever felt anything similar?

  No. Never in his life. The strength of that sentiment, the sheer force of it, made marriage seem like the most certain thing in the world. An attraction that made gravity look weak.

  He wasn’t often certain. The world was a horribly confusing place, even when one knew how it worked. People were so much more chaotic than natural laws; they moved and spoke and felt as they wished, despite what was logical.

  Was how he felt about Margaret Barton logical? It was certain, yes–but was it reasonable?

  No. No, he couldn’t call it reasonable. He was usually reasonable to the point of rudeness, at least in company, but how he’d felt sitting across from Margaret put reason a thousand miles away.

  He’d wanted to kiss her. Right there at her desk; a long, slow kiss, like the ones he’d always imagined but never experienced. He’d wanted to whisper stupid, elaborate things in her ear about her clothes, her face, her body… and if he were very honest with himself, here in the privacy of his bedroom, he’d wanted to throw her onto that cluttered desk and show her the fullest extent of his studies in the carnal arts. All theoretical, of course, but he was a fast and capable learner.

  Had his virginal state ever given him pause before? No. It had never been the most important aspect of his life. Now, thinking about Margaret Barton, Henry realised he felt rather inexperienced.

  Well. She was a matchmaker. Perhaps the carnal aspects of a marriage would be discussed as well. Henry couldn’t quite make that idea fit into the context of a professional encounter without thinking of Covent Garden rookeries, but it could be possible. With Margaret Barton, anything seemed possible.

  Anything seemed possible? Was he really growing so woolly-headed over a woman he’d only just met? Who’d seen him at John and Anne’s wedding, had remembered him, and who he’d ignored entirely at that rather dull event?

  No. It wasn’t woolly-headedness. He felt clearer in his mind than he had in a long time, and Margaret was the cause. She was also the reason he felt so… well. So pleasant.

  He kept close to the people who made him feel safe. Who made him feel warm and protected. His brothers, occasionally irritating as they were, made him feel like that, as did one or two trusted friends. Margaret made him feel like that too–he could tell that from one meeting–but there was something more to it. Something deeper.

  She challenged him, rather than placating him. Gently, of course, but the challenge was there. Henry, used to people either avoiding him or mindlessly agreeing to everything he had to say, found a giddy thrill in picturing Margaret’s quiet look of resolution.

  And she hadn’t said no to him. That was the crucial thing–the thing that kept him smiling as he dressed for bed. She hadn’t refused his very premature proposal.

  Everything was still to play for.

  What could one reasonably wear for a walk through the Menbrake Menagerie? Margaret had never previously considered such a scenario for any of her clients, let alone herself. It had taken three changes of dress, overseen by a confused Cecile and a maid struggling under a pile of reticules and fichus, before she had finally looked at herself in the mirror and been satisfied.

  Professional, but not too professional. Elegant, but not too flattering. Whatever Henry Duke seemed to have decided, she was attending the Menagerie in her capacity of matchmaker–not a friend, and certainly not as a prospective wife. If anyone was to see her walking with him, they would find no sartorial hints of sin about her person.

  Still. How strangely thrilling it would be to stroll through the menagerie in rose-coloured silk, with one of those daringly low new necklines. Perhaps with a parasol, or some other object that could be deliberately dropped to give a gentleman the chance to be chivalrous. As she approached the gates of the menagerie, the respectable dark grey hem of her skirt dragging on the muddy grass, Margaret gave up her dreams of pink dresses with a sigh.

  She was the matchmaker. She would tell Henry what she had found out a
bout him, what sort of lady he would do well to propose to, and receive her payment. That would be the end of it. If she had to look at a few unspeakably sad monkeys or sympathise with an unhappy-looking elephant, so be it.

  ‘Miss Barton?’ Henry’s voice. Margaret turned, her heart in her throat.

  How long had it been since she’d had such a strong physical reaction to a man–any emotion other than professional detachment? Years. Not even in her courtesan days had she received clients with such devastating awkwardness, such–such hope.

  Lord, how ridiculous I’m being.

  ‘Mr. Duke.’ She curtseyed as elegantly as she could, keeping an appropriate distance. She never went within five feet of a man in public, but it seemed exceptionally necessary to remain as far away from Henry as was polite. ‘A.. a lovely day to meet.’

  ‘Really? I think the weather’s rather horrible.’ Henry looked at the grey sky with such evident annoyance that Margaret felt the strangest urge to giggle. ‘Are you lying in order to make things more pleasant?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose I am.’

  ‘Things are already pleasant. I’m meeting you.’ Henry bowed. ‘Come now. The gates are opening.’

  She had known that things were going to take an unconventional turn, but Margaret hadn’t thought such unorthodox things would be said at the very beginning of the conversation. Stranger still, she hadn’t anticipated being so pleased at Henry’s refreshing turns of phrase.

  His words at their first appointment had worked the most peculiar magic. Now that she was looking at him like this, in full knowledge of the effect she had on him, her own body was undergoing the same effect. His tall, broad frame, his serious face, his golden hair—all of it, even the grey sky above them, seemed quite wonderful.

  Alas, the Menbrake Menagerie didn’t quite fall under the redemptive power of attraction. Animals stared mournfully at Margaret through the bars of their minuscule cages, rain dripping onto their heads as they ignored the jeers and cries of the ladies and gentlemen who had come to stare at them. Glancing carefully at Henry out of the corner of her eye, Margaret couldn’t help wondering if he was enjoying the spectacle.