Jillian Hunter - The Wicked Duke Takes a Wife

He coughed into his fist. “I hope no one will take offense if I slip away for the rest of the day? There are matters of my aunt’s comfort that I have promised to attend on Bedford Square.”

Charlotte turned to him. “Of course. No one has stayed in the town house for years. I should have thought to offer Odgers.”

He lowered his hand. “I would appreciate a few hours alone, to be quite honest.” As only a man who had been trapped in a carriage with Aunt Primrose and Edlyn could understand. He’d rather have walked the distance to London, in fact, than have listened to his aunt prattle on about his future wife, about when they would have Edlyn’s debut, and about how she prayed Edlyn wasn’t going to make pets out of the pigeons in London as she had the crows in the castle turret. Yet while Griffin looked forward to a private evening, he would not have minded spending another hour or so with the young instructress who had unwittingly entertained him.

“Edlyn will do well here,” Charlotte assured him as they walked to the door.

“I hope so. She is not… easy.”

She gave him a knowing smile. “If you doubt our success, you have only to look at Miss Gardner for proof.”

“Proof. Of?”

“The academy’s ability to resurrect the sensibilities of one who might otherwise be considered dead by Society.”

Griffin didn’t know what to say. Harriet Gardner seemed anything but dead to him. She had certainly enlivened his arrival.

Charlotte bit her lip. “When you look at Miss Gardner, what is it that you see?”

He couldn’t very well answer, A winsome face with wicked hazel eyes , or A smudged dress . So he said, as gamely as he could manage, “A perfectly… perfectly… well, a gentlewoman.” Which was a safe reply that shouldn’t earn him or Miss Gardner a scolding.

“Did she give you a spot of trouble at first?” Charlotte asked shrewdly. He grinned.

“If she did, I probably deserved it.”

Harriet unstrapped the single traveling trunk sitting up against the bedchamber window. It didn’t occur to her that Edlyn had dragged it there herself until a few moments later.

“Shall we unpack and have your clothes pressed?” she asked.

Edlyn shrugged and wandered like a wraith to the window. The girl’s drab gray frock hung on her thin frame like a shroud. Thoroughly versed in the art of furtive escape, Harriet realized that Edlyn was assessing how dangerous it would be to drop to the garden. “You’d shatter your kneecaps and probably your back. It’s impossible since they cut down the old plane tree.”

“How do you know?” Edlyn asked, kneeling on the trunk.

Harriet hesitated. “One or two of the girls tried to see how far they could go without being caught.”

Edlyn glanced at her. “How far did they get?”

“Don’t you dare say I told you, but Miss Butterfield was brought home before she got past the gardeners. Miss Ruston landed in the philodendrons just below. They’ve taken a while to grow back.”

“And you?”

Harriet smiled. “I’m growing nicely, thank you.”

Edlyn slid backward on her knees, off the trunk. “I don’t care if it’s ever unpacked.” She curled her fingers over the windowsill. “Are there always that many people in the street on a rainy day?”

“That’s nothing.” Harriet came up behind her. “London doesn’t come to life until after midnight in some places.”

“What does one do during the evenings here?”

“Those would be for sitting by the fire, practicing the spinet, or reading.”

“I hate it in this house already.”

“That’s your right, I suppose.” Harriet rubbed the heel of her hand across the glass. “Still, you don’t want to be walking about London unescorted, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Would you like to escort me? I shall pay you.” Edlyn ventured a smile. Insincere as it was, Harriet decided that the girl would be beautiful if she didn’t go to so much trouble to make herself look like a corpse. She had to spend a fortune on rice powder, bleaching cream, and beetroot lip salve.

“You do know London?” Edlyn prompted.

Better than the landscape of her left ear. Harriet knew London from the vice-ridden alleys of the East End, where she’d been born, although no one had ever produced a certificate of birth to prove she existed at all. She knew the riverside docks where her father had worked when capable of rousing his soused arse into action. She knew the dirty warrens, the church bells, and the House of Corrections, at whose doors she’d waited in the rain for her half brothers to be released.

She’d gotten to know the West End, too, the elite squares and mansions of Mayfair where her father had finished her unwholesome education by introducing her to larceny.

“I know the city well enough to entertain you,” she said evasively. “As a student here, you’ll participate in many adventurous outings. There are circulating libraries, operas, and-”

Edlyn twirled a black curl around her half-bitten fingernail in an attitude of bored disinterest. “Will we see any duels?”

“I certainly hope not. Trust me, there’s nothing exciting about seeing a man bleed-you know, breaking the law. But we’ll go on rides in the park, attend dances, and shop on Bond Street. And there are champagne breakfasts that don’t even begin until three, and supper parties-”

“What about Vauxhall Gardens?”

“A duke’s daughter would never set foot in a disreputable place like that.”

“I’m not even sure that I am his daughter.”

“A duke’s niece, then,” Harriet amended, deciding it was high time to slip downstairs for an emergency chat with Charlotte. “I’ll bring you up some tea and cake while you rest.”

“Lots of cake.”

“Very well.”

“Miss Gardner?”

A tinge of foreboding inched down Harriet’s spine. “Yes?”

“Leave my tray outside the door. I don’t want to talk to you again tonight.”

When a long-lost family member returned to the infamous Boscastle flock, it was cause for his brethren to rejoice. When that black sheep happened to be a duke, it was an excuse for Grayson Boscastle, the fifth Marquess of Sedgecroft and anointed leader of the fold, to host as many parties in the prodigal’s honor as could be crammed into a season. He had already been inundated with requests for an invite to meet this new sensation.

Only two days after the young Duke of Glenmorgan’s arrival in London, Grayson feted him at a ball in the Park Lane mansion that had been best described as a small-scale palace. After all, it was not every day that one could display a peer.

As a chosen favorite, Harriet had been invited inside this spacious house on numerous occasions. She wished she could forget her infamous first visit, however.

By some miracle she had managed to elude the senior footman’s coterie of guards and infiltrate Lady Jane’s private closet. The moment she’d stepped into the room, she completely forgot what she had come for. She felt like a princess getting ready for her first ball and not a thief whose half brothers had sent her to do their dirty work.

The closet had seemed bigger than the crumbling pile she shared with seven other people. The huge gilded mirrors that hung on the walls reflected her astonished face and shabby appearance. Piles of painted fans covered a blue silk chaise. She had never seen so many shoes strewn about in her life.

The marchioness must have spent the entire day selecting the perfect costume for the gala. Harriet went to pick up a gold hairpin from the floor. The next thing she knew, she’d slipped one foot into a diamond-encrusted shoe and the other into a dancing pump with a pearl-inlaid heel that made her ankle look devilishly attractive. Then she spied a collection of tapestry shoes in an adjoining room.