Jillian Hunter: The Wicked Duke Takes a Wife

Miss Peppertree propelled her toward the door. “Just be polite and let him guide the conversation,” she said anxiously. “I’d go in your place, but one of us has to remain here to calm the girls down. It is quite clear they are not listening to you.”

Harriet sighed in resignation. The duke, being a Boscastle, would undoubtedly disregard pretension and put her unfounded fears to rest. Lady Dalrymple was probably right. The social experience might prove to be a better lesson than teaching the girls to pour tea without spilling.

The students would witness that the calm reception one afforded a duke differed little from that granted an ordinary gentleman. Harriet had bluffed her way thus far through life. She should be able to pass this minor trial. Besides, the man had not been born who could make her lose her head.

“Wait.” Miss Peppertree clamped a bony hand around Harriet’s wrist. “It is only fair that I advise you to be on your highest guard.”

“He’s only a duke, Daphne.” Harriet pried her wrist from the talonlike grasp. “Good heavens. All this fuss over a person none of us have even met. I shouldn’t have to remind you of what I have dealt with in the past.”

Miss Peppertree nodded unconvincingly, turning to confront what she clearly perceived a less dangerous duty. The drawing room had erupted into chaos. Dames and schoolgirls alike seemed to have fallen under some wicked enchantment. It disheartened Harriet to think that in the end a shove onto the path of holy matrimony mattered more than… a hot cup of tea.

She gave Miss Peppertree a reassuring smile. “I’ll be fine, you silly goose.”

“You don’t know about him, do you?” Miss Peppertree was edging away, a frown of impending doom settling over her thin, pale face.

“What?” Harriet scoffed. “Are you going to tell me that he’s a rake? That all the ladies fall at his feet? You ought to be used to that sort of nonsense by now. I have never known a Boscastle who was a saint.”

“You have never known one who murdered his brother for a dukedom, either,” Miss Peppertree whispered in a dire voice.

Harriet snorted at the warning.

Duke or darling. In her estimation, his grace’s arrival would prove much ado about nothing. He wouldn’t be the first nobleman to be accused of doing away with his brother for an inheritance. That was actually none of her business. What involved her was that he had chosen to darken the academy’s door on the very afternoon she had meant to distinguish herself. To think she had purchased a new frock for the occasion with her paltry savings. The duke would not care.

No doubt he would blow in and out of the school as swiftly as the present storm. He would drop off his ward as casually as the morning post and expect her to be transformed into a proper miss by his next return.

And it might well happen. But not until everyone stopped oohing and aahing and got back to work.

“One more thing,” Miss Peppertree said at her shoulder. “Do you know what he is named for?”

Lord help her. What a time for a history lesson. “Another duke?”

“Not his title-his given name.”

“I shall hardly be on a first name-” Harriet gave a sigh. Far be it for her to spoil Daphne’s small pleasures in life. “Go on. What is his name?”

“It is Griffin.”

Harriet waited a few moments for further clarification. When none appeared to be forthcoming, she released her breath. “Well, I’m glad you told me. I shall bear that in mind when I bring him in from the storm.”

“You have no idea what a griffin is, do you?”

Harriet hung her head. “You have caught me out again.”

“It is a fabled beast.”

She glanced inadvertently at the window. “And here I thought I was greeting an ordinary duke.”

“There is no such thing,” Miss Peppertree said, sounding oddly pleased.

“As a griffin?”

“A sharp tongue will not protect you from the world, Harriet.”

“I know that better than anyone you have ever met.”

Miss Peppertree sniffed. “I admit that when you first came to the academy, I thought you were a hopeless cause. But I have seen you transformed into a living young lady one could almost admire.”

Harriet smiled. “That is high praise, indeed, coming from your lips. But I have to ask-Do griffins attack young girls in particular?”

Miss Peppertree blinked repeatedly. “I would imagine that they attack anything that attracts their notice. They have a lion’s body, a beaked eagle’s head, and-”

Harriet nodded thoughtfully. “That must make it difficult for him to drink tea, speaking of which-”

“-they have wings!”

Harriet had heard enough. “Then he should have flown here, instead of riding in a coach. Honestly, Daphne, a woman of your age should not believe such nonsense.”

“He is a duke, Harriet. A duke.”

Resigned to the whims of the nobility, Harriet hastened into the entry hall. To her surprise, half of the academy’s staff had already emerged from the bowels of the house to observe the occasion. The portly butler, Ogden, proceeded at a sedate pace to the front door, as was his custom, in order to set a proper example to those who served in lesser positions.

“His Grace the Duke of Glenmorgan has arrived!” the head footman, Trenton, shouted back to the underfootman, Raskin, who was hurriedly tying one of his knee breeches with a trio of maidservants trailing amusedly in his wake. Harriet would have scolded the lot of them had she not suddenly lost her voice.

He stood in the doorway, utterly silent, his presence so imposing that Harriet felt as if time had taken a step back to assess him. Suddenly the butler, the footmen, the maid bringing another platter of sandwiches for tea, seemed at a loss as to how they should proceed. They stared at Harriet, awaiting her direction.

But she was staring at the cloaked duke, who must have wondered whether he’d arrived at a house of eccentrics. Raindrops slid from the brim of his black silk hat and ran into the faint lines carved into his cheeks. He glanced back at the carriage parked in the street. She studied his profile. He had a sharp blade of a nose, a cleft in his chin. When he turned again, his metallic-blue eyes cut straight to Harriet, riveting her to the spot.

He’s young , she thought. And he looks a proper beast .

He wrenched off his sodden top hat. The thunderclap that accompanied this impatient gesture deepened the tension that had gripped his spellbound audience.

“Is this or is this not Lady Lyons’s Academy for Young Ladies?” he demanded.

The butler passed the soggy hat to one of the footmen. A maid ran forth to take the dark one’s cloak, only to realize she was still holding a tray. Her hands trembled. The tray wobbled. Harriet was afraid she would scatter a carpet of her watercress sandwiches at the duke’s feet.

He stepped into the hall. A spray of cold wet air and indescribable energy accompanied his entrance. Harriet noticed that there were raindrops caught in his indecently thick eyelashes.

“This is not Lady Lyons’s Academy for Young Ladies, is it?”

His voice, a rich, melodious lilt, reminded Harriet that it was her duty to give him a proper reception, not to admire the length of his ducal lashes. He had brought his niece all the way from the Welsh-English border to the academy with the assumption that it was well worth the trouble. Harriet had been entrusted with offering him a courteous welcome.