Eloisa James - Much Ado About You

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 Magagne. 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 grey 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.

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.’