Annie Burrows - A Duke In Need Of A Wife

Thirty? She was going to have to wait another eight years before the law considered her fit to take charge of her own money?

‘Can’t imagine why nobody has explained it all to you,’ Uncle Barty had said with a frown. ‘Nor why you couldn’t have just asked your Uncle Ned...no, actually,’ he’d said, making a motion with his hand as though swatting away a pesky fly, ‘I can see exactly why you couldn’t talk to that dolt. But I shall talk to him, never fear. I mean to tell him how shocked I am by your appearance. Inform him that he clearly hasn’t been taking proper care of you. That I very much fear you will fade away altogether if they don’t take steps to stop this decline.’ He’d chuckled with glee at the prospect of gaining another rod with which to beat his brother-in-law.

But this time, she hadn’t crept up to her room to hide until the worst had blown over. Instead she’d gone back inside with Uncle Barty and said, albeit rather timidly, that she rather liked the sound of spending some time at the seaside, if nobody would mind too much. And since it had been the first thing she’d shown any interest in since well before Christmas, Uncle Ned had grudgingly conceded that for once Uncle Barty might have the right of it.

And so here she was, bowling along the seafront, in a curricle driven by a duke, no less, with the wind whipping her curls from her bonnet.

Hah! That would show Jack when he found out, which he was bound to do because Uncle Ned or Aunt Agnes were sure to inform him.

Her lips curved into a smile.

She could hardly wait.

Oliver watched a little smile curve her lips and wondered what had put it there. For the first time in his life, he found himself striving to think of some topic that would keep a woman’s mind focused exclusively on what he had to say and not on whatever stray thought might pop into her head next.

‘I separated you from your relatives so that we may speak freely about Mrs Pagett,’ he bit out. It had the effect he’d hoped for since she turned inquisitive brown eyes up at him.

‘Oh, yes. Of course. How does she do? But before we get on to that, there is something I need to say first. I am sorry for speaking to you the way I did.’

‘What way was that?’

‘Well, when I first saw you. I ordered you about. You did look very offended, when I look back on it. I don’t suppose many people speak to you that way, do they? Only, the thing is, you see, I thought you were a waiter. You dressed the way the man who served at our table was dressed.’

‘That night, I was acting as a waiter.’

‘Acting? Whatever for?’

‘It was decided...that is, the committee who organised the event to celebrate the Peace with France felt that, um, it would be a good idea for men such as myself to wait on the lower orders.’

‘You mean,’ she asked, wide-eyed, ‘that all the waiters were dukes?’

‘No. I mean, all the waiters hailed from the better families about these parts.’

‘That is very radical.’

‘You disapprove? You think men of my rank should always stand on their dignity?’ His father would certainly never have demeaned himself by waiting at table. It was one of the factors that had made the experience so very satisfying, showing the world that he was nothing like the man who’d sired him.

‘Disapprove? Oh, no. I was just a bit surprised, that is all. Was it...a sort of...oh, I forgot, I’m not supposed to pepper you with questions, am I?’

Normally, he would agree. But Miss Underwood looked so contrite and the way she’d stopped before actually asking her question had piqued his interest.

‘Asking me one question is hardly peppering me with them, is it? What did you wish to know?’

‘Oh.’ She darted him a look of relief. ‘Well, I just wondered if the act had some sort of religious significance. You know, like...when Jesus washed the disciples’ feet.’

He winced. ‘Nothing so noble,’ he confessed. ‘The decision was taken for purely practical purposes. You see, what with the amount of ale supplied, there were fears from some quarters that there might be...unruliness. That it might all end in disaster.’

‘Well, it did.’

‘Yes, and I have a feeling that the ale, or some other spirituous liquor, may have played a part in it. There can be no other reason for the fireworks to have all gone up at once like that.’

‘Unless someone did it deliberately.’

That was the second time someone had raised suspicions about the causes of the explosion. ‘Why would anyone wish to do anything of the sort?’ He wondered if he’d been right to so quickly dismiss the rumours that had reached Perceval’s ears about a shadowy figure loitering behind the scaffolding not long before the fireworks display had started. He shook his head. ‘The town council put on an event for the benefit of the townspeople, paid for by the local landowners.’

‘We had to pay for our tickets.’

‘You are not locals. Those holidaying in the area were allowed to attend, if they would subscribe. That seemed fair.’

‘I suppose it was,’ she conceded. ‘Mrs Pagett still got hurt, though. And, oh, yes, you were going to tell me how she does.’

‘I fear her road to recovery may be a long one. Although this one,’ he said in disbelief, ‘is not.’

He clearly hadn’t been paying enough attention to the route along which he’d been driving because they were at the end of Marine View already. And he hadn’t said the half of what he’d meant to say to her.

‘Do you attend the assembly,’ he asked her as he brought the curricle to a halt at the foot of her front steps, ‘at the Marlborough Hotel this evening?’

‘Oh, no, the very idea!’ Sofia indicated the bruising on her face with a wry smile. ‘I could not possibly go about looking like this.’

‘Your view, or your aunt’s? No, you need not bother to reply. I believe you would be bold enough to attempt anything, without giving a rap what anyone else were to say of you.’

* * *

Sofia’s heart skipped a beat. Once upon a time, her papa had praised her for being full of pluck. But her aunt had done her best to suppress that side of her. She’d warned Sofia that, because of her background, she needed to be much more careful in her behaviour than most young ladies. And, determined to please her, she’d done her utmost to stop behaving like a ‘hoyden’—she’d curbed her language and followed all the rules, no matter how strange she’d found them.

She’d ended up so repressed that nowadays, in company, she didn’t really speak unless she was spoken to, but was more likely to sit quietly in a corner doing embroidery. The only time she allowed her deepest, truest self to emerge was when she was out walking Snowball, deep in the woods, where nobody else was about.

She’d become the sort of girl who cared so much what people thought of her and might say about her that they all found her as dull as ditch water .

But this man did not believe so. He’d seen something in her that nobody else had seen for years. And in doing so, he had reminded her of who she’d once been. Before she’d started trying so desperately to please the only people who’d been willing to take her in.

She turned to observe his expression. He looked annoyed. But then those eyebrows made him look slightly annoyed all the time. And why should she wish to know whether his observation was meant as a reproof or a compliment, anyway?

And yet, somehow, it did matter.

Perhaps because if there was one person who liked the real her, then she might find the courage to be herself, instead of the pattern card of virtue her aunt had tried to make her into. The version of herself that nobody much liked, least of all herself.