Mary Balogh - One Night for Love

"Her own way," he said with more bitterness than he had intended. "Without me."

"Her own way," she repeated. "With or without you, Neville. Ah. We are about to be joined by Hannah Quisley and George Carson."

Neville turned with a polite smile.

Chapter 19

The Duke of Portfrey was not in the habit of gracing fashionable ballrooms during the Season. He was not by any means a hermit, but balls, he was fond of remarking to his friends, were for young sprigs in search of wives or flirts. At the age of two-and-forty he was not interested in such public pursuits—besides there was Elizabeth, with whom he certainly had a relationship though its exact nature had never been defined.

But he was in attendance at the Ashton ball because of a peculiar fascination with Lily—and because Elizabeth had asked for his escort and it would not have occurred to him to deny her when she made so few demands on him. He had danced the first set with Lily, the second with Elizabeth—and had then been compelled to add an edge of frost to his habitually impeccable manners in order to dissuade his hostess from presenting him to a whole host of other young ladies she was sure would be delightful dancing partners.

Two or three of his acquaintances had teased him with threats of matchmaking mamas setting their caps at him once more—their interest had waned a number of years ago as his age and his indifference to feminine wiles and lures had gradually outweighed the attractions of his rank and wealth and enduring good looks.

"They would be better served to keep their caps firmly tied beneath their chins," his grace replied with languid good humor. But good nature deserted him when Mr.

Calvin Dorsey wandered up to him after Neville had led Elizabeth away to the refreshment room. The duke ignored him and engaged in a casual perusal of the room through his quizzing glass. Dorsey was his dead wife's first cousin and heir to her father, Baron Onslow. His grace had never liked him, neither had his wife.

"Portfrey? Your servant," Mr. Dorsey said pleasantly, sketching a careless bow. "I arrived late. But can gossip possibly have the right of it? Did the Duke of Portfrey lead the sergeant's daughter into the opening set at the grandest squeeze of the Season?" He shook his head, chuckling. "The lengths to which some men are prepared to go in order to curry favor with their mistr—" But he cut himself off with one finger to his lips. "With their particular friends ."

"Congratulations, Dorsey," his grace said without deigning to look at his companion. "You still have a talent for avoiding by half a word having a glove slapped in your face."

Mr. Dorsey chuckled good humoredly and said nothing more for a while as he watched the patterns of the dance unfold. He was of an age with the duke, but time had been somewhat less kind to him. His once-auburn hair had grayed and thinned and he looked by far the older of the two. But he was a man of good humor and a certain charm. There were not many people to whom he spoke with a deliberately barbed tongue. The Duke of Portfrey was one of those few.

"I have been told that you called at Nuttall Grange a couple of weeks ago," he said after a while.

"Have you?" His grace bowed to a buxom dowager with gorgeously nodding hair plumes who passed in front of them.

"A little out of the way of anywhere of any importance to you, was it not?" Mr. Dorsey asked.

For the first time the duke turned his glass on his companion before lowering it and regarding him with the naked eye.

"I may not pay my respects to my father-in-law without being quizzed by his nephew?" he asked.

"You upset him," Mr. Dorsey said. "He is in poor health and it is my business to see that he is kept quiet."

"Since you have been waiting for twenty years with barely concealed impatience to succeed to Onslow's title and fortune," his grace said with brutal bluntness, "I would have thought it more in your interest to encourage me to, ah, upset him, Dorsey. But you need not fear—or hope. I merely sent up my card as a courtesy since I was in the neighborhood. I neither expected nor wished to be received. There was never any love lost between Onslow's family and my own even before Frances and I defied both with our secret marriage. There was even less after her death and my return from the West Indies."

"Since we are into plain speaking," Mr. Dorsey said, "you might oblige me by explaining why you were snooping around at the Grange when my uncle was too ill to send you packing."

"Snooping?" His grace had his glass to his eye again. "Taking tea with the housekeeper is snooping , Dorsey? Dear me, the English language must have different meanings in Leicestershire than anywhere else I have ever been."

"What did you want with Mrs. Ruffles?" Mr. Dorsey demanded.

"My dear fellow," the duke said faintly. "I wished to know—I felt a burning desire to discover, in fact—how many sets of bed linen she keeps in the linen closet."

Mr. Dorsey flushed with annoyance. "I do not like your levity, Portfrey," he said. "And I would warn you to stay away from my uncle in future if you know what is good for you."

"Oh, I certainly know what is good for me," his grace said, the languidness back in his voice. "You will excuse me, Dorsey ? A pleasure to converse with one of my wife's relatives again. It has been a long time, has it not, given the fact that we rather pointedly ignored each other at Newbury Abbey a month or so ago. One can only hope it will be at least as long again before the next time." And he strolled away to exchange civilities with the dowager who had passed them a few minutes before.

What Mrs. Ruffles had been able to do was answer the Duke of Portfrey's questions rather satisfactorily. She had had to think very carefully because the events about which he inquired were twenty years and more in the past. But yes, there had been a Beatrice employed at the Grange. The housekeeper particularly remembered, now she thought about it, because the girl had been dismissed for impertinence, though not to Miss Frances, if she recalled correctly. Why had she thought it might have been Frances, the duke asked. Well, Mrs. Ruffles told him, remembering clearly then, because Beatrice had been Miss Frances's personal maid and Miss Frances had been fond of her and very annoyed with her cousin. The housekeeper had frowned in thought, Yes, that was it. It was Mr. Dorsey to whom Beatrice had been insolent, though she did not remember, probably had never known, exactly what the girl had said to him or done.

Beatrice had left Nuttall Grange a year or more—oh yes, surely more—before Miss Frances's death, Mrs. Ruffles believed. She did not know where the maid had gone. But she had a sister still living in the village, she had added almost as an afterthought.

His grace had called upon the sister, who, once she had recovered from the flusters and the almost incoherent babble that had succeeded them, had been able to inform him that Beatrice had gone away to stay with their aunt and had then married Private Thomas Doyle of the army, whose father had been head groom at Mr. Craddock's estate of Leavenscourt six miles away. The Doyles had gone to India, where Beatrice had died years ago. She thought Thomas Doyle must be dead by now too. She had never heard of his coming back. Not that he would go to Leavenscourt anyway, she supposed. His dad and his brother were both dead, she had heard.

She had not heard of there having been any children born to Beatrice and Thomas.