A marriage of inconvenience

For the buttoned-up duke!

Bound by convention, William Calthorpe, Duke of Aylsham, is in search of a suitable bride to help raise his half siblings. Despite his methodical approach to finding such a lady, he stumbles—quite literally—into freethinking and rebellious bishop’s daughter Verity Wingate. And when they find themselves stranded overnight on a tiny island, compromising them completely, he knows exactly what he must do...

LOUISE ALLEN loves immersing herself in history. She finds landscapes and places evoke the past powerfully. Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite destinations. Louise lives on the Norfolk coast and spends her spare time gardening, researching family history or travelling in search of inspiration. Visit her at louiseallenregency.co.uk, @LouiseRegency and janeaustenslondon.com.

Also by Louise Allen

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Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Least Likely to Marry a Duke

Louise Allen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08886-2

LEAST LIKELY TO MARRY A DUKE

© 2019 Melanie Hilton

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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To Chris, Dickie, Robbie and Darren,

who built me my wonderful library and study.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One
Great Staning, Dorset—May 1st, 1814

William Xavier Cosmo de Whitham Calthorpe, Fourth Duke of Aylsham—William to his recently deceased grandfather, Will in his own head and Your Grace to the rest of the world—strode up the gentle slope of the far boundary of his new home and relaxed into the calming certainty that all was as it should be.

There was the slight matter of the turmoil he had left behind in the house, but he would do battle with that later, when he returned for breakfast. Patience and the application of benevolent discipline was all that was required. A lot of patience.

Now he was doing what any responsible landowner did first thing in the morning—he was walking his estate, learning its strengths and weaknesses and needs so that he could be a good landlord. He was the Duke now and he knew his duty, whether it was to the undisciplined brood of half-siblings who were currently making domestic life hideous or the hundreds of tenants and the numerous estates that were now his responsibility.

Oulton Castle, twenty miles away, was the true seat of the Dukes of Aylsham, but although, naturally, it was in a state of perfect repair and management, it was completely unsuitable for the large and lively family he had just acquired. This manor, Stane Hall, had been in the hands of excellent tenants for years, but with its improved drainage, its unoccupied Dower House and its complete absence of lethal moat, towering medieval walls and displays of ancient weaponry it was a far safer home for now. He could only be thankful that the tenant had been ready to retire to Worthing and had needed no persuasion to leave.

Will pushed thoughts of problems away to focus on what he was doing. This was the seventh day he had been in residence and the first morning he had been able to spare to inspect the land. Ahead must be the northernmost point of the boundary.

He checked the map he had folded into his pocket. Sure enough, the six low irregular bumps that lay before him like a string of half-buried beads were shown with stylised hatching and labelled ‘Ancient Tumuli (Druidic).’ The low morning sun cast long shadows from their bases and the boundary line was shown on the map as running along the crest of the chain. There was no sign of a fence.

That was not good. Fences were of the utmost importance to a perfectly managed estate and he intended Stane Hall to be perfect. Dukes did not accept second-best, either in their staff, their surroundings or themselves. That had been one of the first lessons his grandfather had taught him when the third Duke had plucked Will out of the miserable chaos that life had become with his father, the now deceased and always erratic George, Marquess of Bromhill.

The old Duke’s first attempts at training the perfect heir had all gone for nothing the moment his son, the newly widowed George, set eyes on the lovely Miss Claudia Edwards, writer and passionate educational theorist. A life made notorious by the couple’s eccentricity had ended with the Marquess’s plunge to his death from a rooftop, where he had been putting into practice the theory that a gentleman should be able to perform any task he might ask of others, including manual labour.

Three months later Will was still struggling to feel anything but deep irritation that his father, whom he had hardly known, had failed to grasp the simple fact that he had an obligation to provide employment for as many local people as possible, not replace his own roof tiles at the expense of a skilled craftsman. Will rather suspected that the realisation that he could now hand the title safely to his grandson had enabled the old Duke to finally give up the fight against a debilitating heart condition.

The loss of his grandfather was one for which he was not yet ready to forgive his father. Will had been Marquess of Bromhill for only five weeks when he found himself Duke of Aylsham. That was only eleven—no, twelve weeks ago, he corrected himself. Three months and the pain inside for the grandfather he had lived with for fourteen years had not subsided. But while dukes might observe all the outward shows of mourning, they did not speak of loss and loneliness and certainly not of their fear of finding themselves inadequate to the role they had to fill, Will told himself. He wondered if the old man had felt like this when he had inherited the title. Grandfather would never have admitted it, he thought ruefully.

Will had absorbed all his predecessor’s lessons and he intended to be every inch as perfect a nobleman as the third Duke. That would be easier with the right wife at his side, he knew. The old man had been firm on the importance of not marrying an unsuitable woman and that rule was underlined in Will’s mental list of priorities, as if his father’s example was not warning enough.

Suitable meant well bred, handsome, fertile and brought up to the highest standards of deportment. A pleasant disposition, an adequate level of education and reasonable intelligence were, of course, desirable. Unconventional ideas and eccentricity were impossible, as demonstrated by his stepmother, who, despite perfectly understandable displays of grief for her recent loss, absolutely refused to observe any of the mourning customs suitable to her sex and station in life.

Will brought his mind back from the problem of his stepmother and the prospect of the Marriage Mart—which could not be contemplated for the next forty weeks of mourning, unfortunately—and reapplied it to the matter of boundary fences. He could have brought his estate manager with him on this walk, but he preferred to make his own judgements first, not allow his staff to gloss over shortcomings or try to distract him from problems.

Brooding unproductively on the past had brought him to the foot of the largest tumulus. Naturally, he had come out dressed appropriately for the rigours of the countryside, and well broken-in boots and his second-oldest pair of breeches were entirely suitable for scrambling up hillocks.

His boots slid on the rabbit-cropped grass as he reached the top, turning as he climbed to face back the way he had come. From here the view over his park was a fine one with the distant glint of water from the lake, a group of grazing fallow deer and mature trees in picturesque coppices. The warming air brought green scents, a hint of hedgerow blossoms, the rumour of the dung hill awaiting spreading in a nearby field.

Was the house visible from here? He shifted back a step to change the angle and the ground vanished from beneath him, pitching him down into the mound in a shower of earth and stones.

Will landed with a painful thud on his tail bone. Dirt and pebbles rained down on his bare head and his low-crowned beaver hat rolled away over beaten earth to the knees of the young woman crouched in front of him. The young woman with a loose plait of rich toffee-coloured hair over one shoulder, wide brown eyes—and a human skull clutched to her midriff. At which point something bit him sharply on the left buttock.

* * *

There was very little warning, only a long shadow falling across her as a body crashed down into her excavation slicing into the mound. Verity lunged forward, grabbed at the skull and rocked back on her heels as the man landed in front of her with a grunt, one short, sharp Anglo-Saxon expletive and a loud rattle of stones.

Silence. It was neither a thunderbolt nor a fallen angel facing her, either of which might have been easier to deal with. The dust settled, leaving her staring at a fair-haired man, blue eyes narrowed against the light, mouth set with either discomfort or fury. Very likely both. He was dressed in expensive, simple and utterly appropriate country clothing, now filthy.

Utterly appropriate. I know who you are. Oh, no...

His handsome face contorted in a wince of pain and she realised why. As social disasters went, this ranked high.

‘Sir, I fear you may be sitting on a tooth.’

Not the correct form of address, but as we have not been introduced...

Those blue eyes narrowed a little further as he shifted on to his right hip, reached underneath his coat-tails and produced a human jawbone. ‘A tooth? Singular?’ he enquired. Then his gaze shifted to what she was cradling against her bosom. ‘Madam, you appear to be holding a skull. A human skull.’

‘Yes,’ Verity agreed.

Presumably he was being sarcastic with the appear. It could hardly be mistaken for anything else.

‘I am and it is. Is the jawbone undamaged? I mean, are you unhurt?’ There was no really ladylike way of asking a duke if his left buttock had been wounded by an Ancient Briton. It was absolutely out of the question to snatch the jaw from him to check that it was intact. The bone, that is.

‘I am sure it is nothing serious, madam. I apologise for my language earlier.’ It would be much easier to deal with this if he had shown the anger he must be feeling. Or even moaned in acknowledgement of the pain. As it was, the conversation might as well be happening at Almack’s. The Duke shifted his long legs as though to stand.

‘No!’ She took a breath and moderated the volume. ‘Please stay exactly where you are or you will damage the sides. Just allow me to move everything.’ Verity placed the skull carefully in the box of hay she had prepared for it and held out her hand for the jaw. When that was safe she moved back, gathered her skirts around her ankles and stood up.

The Duke, being a gentleman, had averted his gaze. He was probably too cross to consider ogling her in any case. Verity ignored the urge to see exactly what would provoke him into behaving improperly and waited while he rose to his feet in an enviably effortless and controlled manner.

He is the youngest Duke, not yet thirty, and he has no vices to mar that fine figure.

Her cousin Roderick had told her about the man who was now Duke of Aylsham. His reputation had been built up over many years of being merely the impeccable Lord Calthorpe and apparently the man was a byword for acting with absolute propriety under all circumstances.

They call him Lord Appropriate.

Roddy had written that about eighteen months ago, in the course of one of his chatty, gossip-filled letters.

Of course his father the Marquess, is eccentric, to put it very kindly, and his stepmother is a notorious bluestocking, so it was probably a relief to be rescued by his grandfather, who took him to live with him when Calthorpe was a boy.

The old Duke is the stiffest stickler for what is due to his position that you may imagine, but, even so, Calthorpe appears to have gone to extremes to conform. One day he will be the starchiest duke in the kingdom. He has even managed a duel with perfect correctness—a lady was insulted, he issued a challenge, deloped, shook hands with the other man even though he did not delope, merely missed, and refused to gossip afterwards.

Inhuman, I call it.

It seemed she was responsible for shaking an entirely improper oath out of the man, in addition to ruining his lovely but tastefully well-worn clothes, scraping his expensive boots and biting, by proxy, his perfect ducal backside.

And it probably is perfect, judging by how fit he seems. Those thighs...

At least he was capable of standing and nothing appeared to be broken. Verity told herself to wait until after the Duke had gone before she fussed over her careful excavation through the tumulus. ‘You are probably wondering what I am doing?’ she said. The very way he was not looking at her outfit of a plain skirt, laced boots and tweed jacket conveyed perfectly his shock at seeing a gentlewoman so attired. Goodness knew where her straw hat had gone.

‘I was surprised to find my Druidical monument bisected, I must confess,’ he said, perfectly courteous, but without a hint of a smile. ‘I was even more surprised to discover that it was being filleted by a lady.’

Verity opened her mouth, shut it again, taken aback by just how much she wanted to shake the man. He was polite. He was, not to put too fine a point on it, a supremely decorative example of his sex. But all she wanted was to shock another swear word out of him, or a smile, or an admission by so much as a flicker of an eyelid that he had glanced at her ankles as she stood up. His manner was perfectly correct, but she could tell, as clearly as if he had said so, that he thoroughly disapproved of her and thought her occupation bizarre and unseemly.

Oh, the horror of it! A female engaged in an intellectual pursuit involving engaging her brain and getting her hands dirty! Civilisation as he knows it will probably come to an end at any moment.

‘I am sorry to contradict you, sir, but it is not your monument, it is our monument. I have been most careful to excavate a section through this side of it only. My side. I am not convinced it has any connection at all with the Druids and I am most certainly not filleting it. This is a precise excavation conducted according to the most modern antiquarian principles. I can lend you the relevant papers on the subject if you are interested.’ She smiled, the kind of winsome, ladylike smile she had once reserved for tea parties at the Bishop’s Palace before Papa retired. The Duke was an intelligent man, she was sure. He would recognise a lightly disguised snarl when he saw one.

The contrast between her words and the smile made him narrow his eyes, presumably in displeasure. ‘Your side? This land belongs to you?’

Verity pointed to the one remaining post sticking out of the crown of the mound, twelve carefully measured inches back from the edge of her cut. ‘That is the remains of your fence.’

His lips tightened. Did he think that was an implied rebuke about the state of his boundaries? ‘I fear I should have introduced myself earlier.’ He removed his gloves, produced a vast and spotless white linen handkerchief, wiped his hands free of the dirt that had penetrated despite them and held out the right one to her. ‘I am Aylsham.’

‘I had guessed as much, Your Grace.’ Verity swiped her hand over her skirt and took his. ‘I am Miss Wingate.’ She retrieved her fingers rather abruptly. ‘My father is the Bishop of Elmham—the retired Bishop, that is. The current incumbent’s country seat is nearer the county boundary, but the Old Palace actually belongs to Papa. He bought it from the Church Commissioners when he was recovering from his stroke. They thought it too antiquated for present times, but we are very fond of it.’

She was talking too much and recognising why was no help. This was an attractive man—even if he was a judgemental aristocrat—and he had her at a disadvantage. She was partly responsible for his accident, she was looking a fright and under these circumstances she had no idea how to behave with him.

‘Miss Wingate. I was intending to give myself the pleasure of calling on your father tomorrow. If his health permits, of course?’

Why am I cross? Verity asked herself as she explained that the afternoon was the best time for her father and that, naturally, he would be delighted to meet the Duke. Because I care what he thinks, she answered. And that is infuriating. Just because he had broad shoulders and a firm chin and blue eyes and looked as though his smile—if he ever produced one—would be delicious, there was no reason to fawn over the man. She spent her life ensuring that, as far as it was within her power, men did not get fawned upon to the disadvantage of women. Once had been quite enough in her experience.

Now the Duke was looking around him. A small furrow appeared between straight brows two shades darker than his hair. ‘You are alone, Miss Wingate? I cannot see your maid or your labourers.’

‘My groom will be collecting me at eight.’ She glanced up to the east, noting the position of the sun. ‘It must almost be that now. If you will excuse me, I will secure my excavation.’ The skull was the most important thing, of course, but she had to make sure that the descent of one long-limbed male had not disturbed or damaged anything else.

‘May I assist?’

‘No,’ she said sharply. ‘I mean, no, thank you, Your Grace. If you could just stand over here, clear of the cut surfaces and the floor? Yes, there, perfect.’

Stop it, she scolded herself as she picked up the brush and tidied up the fallen pebbles and earth. He is not perfect, merely a well-formed gentleman. And do not pretend you were not examining the rear view just now. You knew perfectly well the tails of his coat would disguise any sign of damage done by that jawbone.

The Duke had broad shoulders and a trim waist to go with those long legs. It was maddening—surely something had to be imperfect? Other than his manner, of course. Who would need an ice house when they had the Duke of Aylsham to hand, ready to cast a chill over any situation?

The sound of wheels on gravel heralded the arrival of Tom with the pony and trap. He pulled up well clear of the excavation as he had been taught and came over, hat in hand. ‘Good morning, sir. Miss Wingate, are you ready?’

‘This is the Duke of Aylsham, Tom, and, yes, I am ready. Please put the tools in the back and then this box, very carefully.’

* * *

Will watched the retreating vehicle, picked up his hat and flicked the worst of the soil off it with his handkerchief. Both hat and handkerchief appeared ruined to him, but Notley, his valet, would no doubt work his magic on them, along with the scuffed boots, scarred gloves and soiled coat.

He made his way around the mound to the gap between it and the next, smaller, tumulus. For some reason he wanted to have his feet on his own land before he thought about that little episode.

What a hoyden Miss Wingate was, not at all what a prelate’s daughter should be. Will lengthened his stride along the headland, making for the point where a hedge and track cut back towards the house. Dressed like a working woman, no hat, no gloves, hair coming undone on her shoulders, grubbing about on hands and knees in the earth—and handling a human skull as though it was a pudding basin. Outrageous. And she had been laughing at him because of where that confounded jawbone had attacked him, he could tell, even though she had kept her face perfectly straight. There had been a devilish twinkle of amusement in her eyes. They were a rather attractive brown...

The unfortunate Bishop must be sick indeed if he was allowing his daughter to carry on in such a manner, Will concluded as he reached the track. In no way was such an occupation fit for a gentlewoman. Even his stepmother drew the line at grubbing about in earth for old bones. It was most unfortunate, because there was no way in which he could prevent his half-sisters from making her thoroughly unsuitable acquaintance, given that they were now neighbours. He could hardly snub a bishop.

How old was she? Twenty-three or four? Those dark eyes, that hair, like golden toffee streaked through with rich brown, those long legs and the elegant curves as she had risen to her feet... Her feet had been encased in boots more fitted for an under-gardener, but the flash of ankle he had glimpsed had been slender and rounded.

Stop it, Will, his conscience admonished as he climbed over a stile. She is clearly going to be an embarrassment as a neighbour and you have no business thinking about women at the moment in any case. Not for another forty weeks.

This mourning was a confounded nuisance. It was all very right and proper, of course. And he sincerely and deeply grieved for the loss of his grandfather, but he desperately needed help with his brood of half-siblings and a wife would be perfect for that. A wife with nerves of steel and a rigorous sense of duty, he added to his mental list of requirements. But no lady who was suitable to be the wife of a duke would consider flouting convention and being wooed and wed before the mourning period of a year was over.

And now he had gone half the distance he had intended to cover that morning and the encounter with Miss Wingate had made him forget to record points about the land as he went. Will climbed the next stile, sat down on the far step and got out his notebook.

Blockage in the west ditch, the fence across the tumuli...

A warm, mocking brown gaze... Mocking. She thought that entire episode was amusing, the confounded chit.

* * *

‘Good morning, Papa. Good morning Mr Hoskins, Larling.’ Verity caught sight of herself in the long mirror as she entered her father’s bedchamber on the stroke of half past nine and gave her reflection a nod of approval. She had bathed, changed, breakfasted and organised the events of the early morning into a suitably edited version in her head and now, looking the perfect model of a senior clergyman’s daughter, was ready to keep her father company while he breakfasted.

Her father smiled his lopsided smile, the Reverend Mr Hoskins jumped to his feet and mumbled a greeting in return and Larling, the valet, placed the breakfast tray on the bedside table.

A savage brain seizure almost two years before had left her father unsteady on his feet, liable to tire rapidly and with virtually no comprehensible speech. It had, mercifully, not affected his very considerable intellect. James Wingate was still a formidable scholar of the early church in Britain and was continuing his work with the assistance of his Chaplain and secretary, Christopher Hoskins.

Trial and error had helped the household establish a strict routine. Verity rose at dawn, had a cup of coffee, put an apple in her pocket and went off to her excavations for two hours, returning to bathe and take breakfast. At nine thirty her father broke his fast, in bed, while she entertained him with the results of her morning’s excavating and plans for the day.

When he rose the Bishop would retire to his study with Hoskins and they would work, communicating in their own manner, until luncheon at twelve thirty. Then her father would rest for two hours and either resume his researches until four or receive callers.

Which left Verity the afternoon free, provided there were no visitors and the cares of housekeeping did not entangle her for more than the morning. And today there was nothing to detain her. The threat of a descent by the Duke tomorrow she would worry about when it happened.

Her father finished his porridge and lifted an eyebrow, her cue to recount events so far.

‘I have succeeded in removing the skull intact, Papa. I can see no sign of anything buried with the body, but then, the rest of the skeleton is not visible, being under the far side of the mound. I will clean it and take measurements and then I can rebury it and fill in the cut. You recall that I have already made sketches of the exposed interior of the mound.’

He nodded, smiling his approval, encouraging her to continue. The only problem was, nothing else had happened at the excavation other than her unexpected visitor.

‘The Duke was out walking and...er...dropped in to see what I was doing.’

‘The Duke of Aylsham?’ Mr Hoskins asked, quite as though the neighbourhood was replete with a selection of dukes to choose from.

‘Yes. He was perfectly civil and expressed a desire to call tomorrow, Papa. I said we would be happy to receive him.’

Her father’s hands moved in the rapid signs that only his Chaplain was able to decipher at speed. ‘Does he appear to be intellectually inclined?’ Mr Hoskins asked.

‘I have no idea, I’m afraid. He seemed intelligent, although whether he has intellectual leanings I could not judge. He does not seem to know anything of antiquarian matters.’

And he certainly does not appear to believe in women using their brains.

The Chaplain was translating again. ‘I look forward to meeting him. His grandfather was a man of great powers—I have high hopes of our new neighbour.’

Verity told herself to be glad. The stimulus would be good for Papa, the presence of the ducal household would be excellent for the local economy and she should not be selfish. What did it matter if the man thought her an eccentric hoyden or blamed her for the teeth marks on his posterior? His opinion, good or bad, was a matter of supreme indifference to her. She had better things to think about, surely, than a pair of chilly blue eyes.

Chapter Two

The breakfast room closely resembled a menagerie after all the cage doors had been opened. Will strode to the head of the table and nodded to Peplow, the butler, who pulled back the heavy carved chair, tilted it, then let it go with a thud.

The sound was enough to attract the attention of the other occupants of the room. Silence fell. Six heads turned in his direction, four footmen kept their gazes firmly fixed on the opposite wall. After the first two days they had learned not to flinch too obviously.

‘Good morning, Althea, Araminta, Alicia. Good morning, Basil, Bertrand, Benjamin. Gentlemen, your sisters are waiting for you to seat them.’ He remained standing while his half-sisters took their places with varying degrees of elegance, then sat, with a nod of permission to the boys which coincided with their own scramble to sit. ‘Basil, it is your turn to say grace, I believe.’

Basil, fourteen and possibly the world’s least devout boy, lurched to his feet again and looked around wildly for inspiration. ‘Er... Thank you, God, for kedgeree for breakfast. Amen.’ He sat down again with a grin of relief.

Will told himself that he should probably be grateful that the thanks had been addressed to the deity and not to Beelzebub and nodded to the butler to begin service. He had rapidly discovered that a breakfast where everyone helped themselves from the buffet was a recipe for chaos.

‘Boys, napkins. Benjamin, pass your sister the butter, she should not have to ask twice. Althea, Araminta, Basil, tomorrow afternoon you will accompany me to call on our neighbour, the Bishop of Elmham. Please inform Miss Preston and Mr Catford that you will be absent from your lessons.’

‘A bishop?’ Althea wrinkled her very pretty nose. ‘That sounds dull.’

‘Bishop Wingate has retired due to ill health. He is, however, a notable scholar and, I should not have to point out, it would not matter if he was as dull as ditch water, it would still be our duty to call upon our neighbour as a matter of courtesy. You address a bishop as my lord.’

The rest of the meal was an obstacle course through instructions on etiquette, a lecture on the absolute necessity to do things out of duty which might not give one pleasure, the privileges and responsibilities of rank and the discovery that Basil had a mouse in his pocket.

As the screams and tantrums occasioned by the discovery, capture and banishment of the mouse subsided, Will wondered whether he was doomed to a stomach ulcer by the time he was thirty and mentally prepared himself for the horrors of the daily meeting with the children’s tutor and governess.

It was too much to expect that a few weeks could undo the damage of a childhood where the only rule their doting and deluded parents had imposed was to do exactly as one wished, the moment one thought of it and without any pause for reflection. That way, his stepmother had explained, the natural genius of each child would unfurl tenderly, like the petals of a flower. They would learn what they needed to know as, and when, they felt the necessity.

The only small mercy was that they were not illiterate, he thought, doggedly finishing his ham and eggs. The desire to read completely unsuitable books had driven all of them to master their letters and then, when they wanted to compose their own stories, to learn to write. Mathematics, however, was apparently a closed book to all of them and as for basic etiquette, that was an alien concept he was painfully—for all concerned—imposing on them.

I need a wife, he thought again.

He could teach the boys to be gentlemen, but his sisters needed more than a governess. They had their mother, of course. Lady Bromhill was living in the Dower House, writing another tract on the natural education of children, no doubt, and holding forth at length to anyone who would listen on the iniquity of imposing rules of mourning on women. Her grief was deep and genuine, Will fully acknowledged, but her methods of expressing it were outrageous. He lived in daily anticipation that she would scandalise the neighbourhood by appearing in a crimson gown or emulate the women of Classical societies by rending her clothing and beating her bare bosom while wailing in Ancient Greek.

Will shuddered. It was unfortunate that his siblings would be exposed to another unconventional female tomorrow when they called on the Bishop, because the last thing that they needed was the example of more shocking behaviour. He mentally squared his shoulders; his grandfather had shown him all too clearly that being a duke was no easy undertaking but, somehow, he had not expected that raising a delinquent family would be part of his duties. For the thousandth time he reminded himself that they had recently lost their father, that their lives had been turned upside down as much as his had, that he must temper discipline with kindness.

* * *

Verity surveyed the sunny room at the front of the house with muted satisfaction, given that she was about to act as hostess to the Disapproving Duke. The Chinese drawing room was the smaller of the two reception rooms and, being next to the library, was the most convenient and comfortable for her father. He was seated in a deep leather armchair, discussing the morning’s newspapers with Mr Hoskins, who was reading out articles which Papa would then comment on by sign language.

They had reached the reports from the House of Lords which always prompted vehement gestures when Bosham, their butler, announced, ‘His Grace the Duke of Aylsham, Lady Althea Calthorpe, Lady Araminta Calthorpe, Lord Basil Calthorpe, my lord.’

Verity did a rapid assessment of the ages of the juvenile party and sent Bosham a meaningful look. He nodded and departed, hopefully to warn the kitchen that more than Oolong tea and dainty cakes would be needed.

‘Miss Wingate, Your Grace,’ Mr Hoskins said, taking on himself the introductions that her father could not make.

The Duke blinked, stared and then had himself under control almost before she realised how surprised he was at her appearance. Verity produced a smile and saw a gleam of something very like approval in those blue eyes.

I am just the same woman as the one who shocked you yesterday, she thought crossly. I am wearing a suitably modest and pretty afternoon gown, my hair is just where it should be and I have powdered away the evidence of a touch of sun on my nose. So now you approve of me, do you? But I do not crave your good opinion, Your Grace.

He shook hands with her, went across to her father and waited a barely perceptible moment to be sure a handshake was going to be returned before offering his hand.

Mr Hoskins bowed. ‘My lord welcomes you to the Old Palace, Your Grace. I am Christopher Hoskins, chaplain and secretary to the Bishop.’

The Duke was not too top-lofty to shake hands with Mr Hoskins as well, which pleased Verity. He turned to beckon forward the youngsters. ‘Bishop, Miss Wingate, Reverend Hoskins, may I introduce my brother and sisters? The three younger ones have remained at home.’

They were a handsome family, Verity thought, but their manner was strangely stilted, as though they were performing by rote, not going through a familiar and routine courtesy. Were they afraid of their brother? She had an unpleasant suspicion that perhaps they were. He probably would not even have to administer corporal punishment to cow them—one look from those bleak blue eyes was enough for a sensitive child, she was sure.

The Duke took a seat by her father and Verity gathered the younger Calthorpes to her on two sofas set at right angles around the tea table. ‘They will bring in refreshments shortly,’ she said, smiling in the face of their poorly concealed examination of herself and the room. ‘Now, do tell me about yourselves. You have other brothers and sisters, I believe?’

The oldest, Althea, she recalled, said, ‘Oh, yes, there are six of us. I am sixteen, Araminta and Basil here are twins and they are fourteen, then Alicia is thirteen, Bertrand is ten and Benjamin is nine.’

‘And you live with your brother and your mama? I would like to meet her, but I am sure she does not feel like visits just at the moment. I was so grieved to hear about your poor father and, of course, your grandfather.’

‘We didn’t know the old Duke. He and Mama and Papa did not get on,’ Basil confided. ‘We live with William now and Mama lives in the Dower House because William is our guardian and he says we are little savages and need civilising and Mama considers civilisation stunts natural creativity. We miss Papa and Mama is sad. But Will doesn’t care, he just makes us learn the stupidest things, like arithmetic and Latin. And we have to behave. All the time,’ he added darkly.

‘We have to learn deportment and sewing and the use of the globes,’ Araminta added. ‘The girls, that is. The boys don’t have to sew or balance books on their heads.’

That did not sound too tyrannical—a typical aristocratic education, in fact. ‘Arithmetic is very useful,’ Verity offered. ‘It will help you manage your allowances, for example, and make sure you are not cheated in shops.’

That appeared to strike home with the girls, but Basil seemed unconvinced. ‘There is lots of money. Too much to worry about. And Mama and Papa never made us do anything we didn’t want to. Mama says mourning is an outdated convention intended to oppress women and that we should be sad about Papa just how we want and not go about draped in black. She would like you to visit, I’m sure.’ He grimaced. ‘I think mourning is meant to oppress boys as well. Papa wouldn’t want us not to enjoy ourselves. It doesn’t mean we don’t miss him, because we do.’

‘It is only right and natural that you miss our father.’ The deep voice behind her made Verity jump. ‘But society has its conventions which are part of what makes us civilised. And you want to be civilised, do you not?’

‘Yes, William,’ three voices chorused. The three faces looked unconvinced.

He is turning them into little puppets, Verity thought, studying the young people’s expressions. ‘Would you like to go out into the gardens?’

They jumped to their feet, earning a hiss of displeasure from behind her. Verity stood, too, and turned to face the Duke. He towered over her. Too close, too large and too sure of himself.

‘Such a lovely afternoon, don’t you think, Your Grace?’

‘Delightful,’ he agreed smoothly. ‘And I would very much enjoy seeing the gardens.’

I did not mean you, too. Stay in here and be pompous. But she could hardly say that.

‘This way.’ She led them to the glazed doors opening on to the terrace and, of course, he got there first to open them for her. His cologne was a subdued hint of Spanish leather. Very masculine and restrained. How appropriate.

‘Thank you so much.’

The Old Palace had once been a fifteenth-century fortified house with four wings which made a square around a large inner courtyard. As the country became less unsettled under Henry VII, the Bishop at the time had demolished one wing, opening the courtyard out to the south and leaving a U-shaped building. Under Henry VIII, the scars of the demolition were disguised by two fanciful towers at each end of the U and finally, under James I, a garden was created where the courtyard had been.

Now, in the sunny May weather, the early roses were coming into flower, bees buzzed in what would soon be billows of lavender and rosemary and water trickled from the central fountain.

‘This is delightful. The colours are most harmonious.’

Finally, she thought. Something you approve of.

‘Yes, is it not charming? It is generally regarded as a most romantic garden.’

‘Romantic.’ He sounded as though he had never heard the word before. ‘I was thinking that it was well planned.’

Verity shot him an exasperated look, stumbled on the top step and was caught around the waist and set firmly on her feet again before she could blink. The Duke removed his hands, leaving the impression of size, warmth and strength.

‘Thank you.’ It was most disconcerting, that easy physicality with that very restrained behaviour. Disturbing, somehow...

The youngsters had vanished down one of the pathways. The Duke turned from frowning over that as Mr Hoskins helped her father to his seat just outside the doors.

‘My lord would be delighted if you would care to explore the garden, Your Grace,’ Mr Hoskins said.

Her father was regarding her with a particularly bland expression that aroused Verity’s suspicions. What are you up to, Papa?

Then she saw his gaze was flickering from her to the Duke and back and understood.

Oh, no, Papa. We have had the conversation about matchmaking before—and the fact that this one is a duke makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.

But he was a guest and common courtesy must be observed at all costs. ‘Do allow me to show you the fountain, Your Grace. It was created to a design of my late mother’s, although she never saw it completed.’

He offered his arm as was proper and she placed her fingertips on it as they began to stroll along the central path. Was it simply the fact that he was a duke that created this strange aura of power that he carried with him? Or was it just that he was a tall, broad-shouldered man approaching his prime? Or perhaps it was simply this ridiculous awareness she had of him, a potent combination of physical attraction and dislike.

Her friend Melissa Taverner would doubtless say it was because Verity was suppressing her natural animal instincts and she should indulge in some flirtation, or even kissing, in order to give them free rein. But then Melissa would probably find the Duke’s stepmother a sister spirit, with equally advanced notions about ‘natural’ behaviour. Verity did not want to revert to nature. She had given in to those instincts once before—and discovered them seriously flawed—and now she simply wanted to have control over every aspect of her own life.

As they approached the central pool she chatted brightly about plants and garden design without receiving any response beyond polite murmurs. Then the Duke said, abruptly, ‘Did you lose your mother recently, Miss Wingate?’

‘When I was ten. It was a short illness of a few months. She was gone almost before anyone realised how serious it was.’ There was something about the quality of his silence that prompted her to add, ‘You were young when you lost your own mother, I believe?’

‘I was nine. Eighteen years ago. I hardly knew her.’ Perhaps he thought that sounded harsh because he added, ‘Do you recall your mother clearly?’

‘I remember her face—but that is easy, her portrait hangs in the dining room. I can recall her voice—it was gentle and sweet. I do not think I ever heard her raise it. Her hands were soft.’ Verity caught herself before her voice wobbled. ‘She was very pious and a very...traditional wife, I think.’

Not very intelligent, I suspect. No intellectual to match Papa. But a good woman. One who was loved. One who created a happy home.

‘Are you pious and traditional, Miss Wingate?’

Startled, she glanced up, and caught a flicker of something unexpected in the heavy blue gaze. Amusement? Warmth? Sarcasm, probably. ‘Pious? I hope I am a faithful churchwoman, but I lay no claim to piety. You know already that I am not traditional, Your Grace. But as I am not married, who knows whether I would be such a wife as my mother was.’

They had reached the fountain and she moved away from him to sit on the stone rim of the pool. She trailed her hand in the cool water and waited until the fish rose, as they always did, to nibble hopefully at her fingers. In the distance the laughter and calls from the young people told her that they had found the maze and over that happy sound drifted the first rippling bars of a piano sonata.

‘Who is the pianist? They are very skilled.’ The Duke propped his cane against the stone and stood beside her, too much on his dignity, she supposed, to perch on the fountain rim and risk the spray. He looked up and his gaze sharpened on the eastern tower.

‘She is a friend of mine. There is no pianoforte in her house and so she uses mine to practise.’ The others would be up there, too, in the Demoiselles’ Tower as Mr Hoskins, with one of his unexpected flights of fancy, called her private turret. Lucy playing; Melissa, fingers inky, working on her latest novel; Prue with her nose in a Greek grammar; and Jane painting the view, or her friends at work. The door at the top of the decorative external stairway that encircled the tower was firmly closed, thank goodness.

‘That is very generous of you. Your friend makes good use of the opportunity.’ He paused so long that Verity looked up to see him frowning in the direction of the catcalls and laughter. ‘Excuse me if I am jumping to conclusions, but if the fact that she does not own her own pianoforte means that her financial circumstances are a trifle restricted, might she be interested in teaching my sisters?’

There was no pianoforte in Lucy’s home because her parents, who could perfectly well have afforded one in every room, considered music, other than church music, to be decadent and probably sinful. Most things were sinful, according to Mr and Mrs Lambert, especially anything that gave pleasure. Verity sometimes wondered how Lucy and her four brothers were ever conceived. Miserably, probably. She had learned to play at school, from which she had been removed when her parents discovered that three of the pupils were the illegitimate daughters of an earl. When they realised that Lucy had been practising on the old piano in the church vestry she had bruises on the palms of her hands for days and now they had no idea she was still playing.

‘I am afraid not. It is not lack of funds, it is her mama’s sensitivity to any loud noise that prevents Lucy from playing at home.’ Loud sounds including laughter. ‘It is a good pianoforte, but I am an indifferent player, so I am delighted that she puts it to such good use.’

‘No doubt you are proficient at other musical instruments. The harp, perhaps? Or you sing, I have no doubt.’ The question seemed automatic, as though he took it for granted that she was merely being coy.

‘No, I play no musical instruments, Your Grace, and my singing is of the kind better heard at a distance.’

Like bagpipes—ideally with several intervening glens.

‘You are too modest, I am sure, Miss Wingate.’ He was still frowning in the direction of the maze, she noted. And finding it impossible to believe that I do not have the full set of desirable ladylike attributes. The Duke’s opinion of her must be sinking lower with every discovery about her true nature. Excellent. I will seem so very ineligible that he will not even recognise Papa’s hopes of throwing us together.

‘I do not indulge in false modesty, Your Grace. I am aware of my strengths and abilities and quite clear about my weaknesses.’ That earned her a very penetrating look. Perhaps young ladies were not supposed to discuss weaknesses. Now that she thought of it, there was a possible double entendre there. Or was she sensitive about it because her worst weakness had most definitely not been the kind of thing one discussed in polite society? ‘Shall we walk to the maze and see whether your sisters and brother have discovered the way to its heart?’

‘Most certainly.’ He offered his arm again as she stood, the frown lines between his brows relaxing as they moved to a safer topic. ‘Is it a complex pattern?’

‘Very, Your Grace.’ It was quite trying, being so comprehensively disapproved of. How difficult for him, but, of course, he could not ignore the attention due to a bishop living in the neighbourhood. Verity found a bland smile from somewhere. ‘The summer house in the centre is very charming, but it rarely receives visitors, the maze is so devious.’ She did not look up at her tower as they passed it. She doubted very much if her friends had interrupted their work to come to the windows, but they might have been distracted by the children and she had no desire to explain her ‘reading circle’ to the Duke if he saw a collection of female faces looking down at him.

‘And here is the entrance. It is a very ancient maze, Tudor, my father believes, judging by the thick trunks of the yews in the hedges. I can hear the young people and it does not sound as though they have reached the centre yet.’

‘One can normally hear them all too clearly, Miss Wingate,’ the Duke said drily. But there was a hint of affection there, a touch of amusement in the deep voice, and Verity felt a sudden, unwilling, twinge of liking.

He does love them after all, she thought. Perhaps there is a warm heart under that starchy exterior, even if it is only for his badly behaved siblings.

‘Their mama believes in a very liberal approach to child-rearing, I understand?’

‘“Each child, if left to his or her own devices and not bound by the chains of convention and artificial disciplines, will unfurl as a perfect flower.” That is a direct quote, Miss Wingate. I have yet to discover what bloom Basil is destined to be. A bramble, perhaps. Or deadly nightshade.’

‘I am sure the theory is well meant,’ Verity ventured.

Of all the dangerous ideas! Children need security and boundaries and an education that will open their eyes to the delights of the world, as well as preparing them for its pains and duties.

‘Now that, Miss Wingate, is damning with faint praise.’ This time the amusement was plain to hear.

Goodness. The man has a sense of humour. How unexpected. And how admirable that he can smile about the task he has before him. ‘I agree that it is wrong to suppress joy in a child, or to warp their natural character. The knack, I suppose, is to allow the flowers to continue blooming, but to ensure they are fitted for the soil in which they must continue to grow,’ she suggested. ‘If I might stretch the horticultural simile somewhat.’

‘Exactly that, Miss Wingate. I have three sisters and three brothers. The girls must make good marriages and the boys must find occupation suited to their rank and talents. They cannot simply run wild their entire lives. We will get there, I am certain, but to be quite frank with you, it will be an uphill road.’

‘Basil, you beast! You said you could find the centre easily and now we are lost and you have no idea at all how to get out and we will starve in here and our bleached bones will be found in a hundred years!’ The shrill voice came from just behind the nearest stretch of yew hedge.

The Duke sighed. ‘It seems I have a long way to go yet.’

Chapter Three

‘Lady Araminta,’ Verity called. ‘Stay where you are, keep talking and your brother and I will come and find you.’ She lowered her voice and smiled up at the Duke, suddenly at ease with him. ‘I assume Lady Araminta enjoys Gothic novels.’

‘Apparently, yes. I must speak to her governess about that. Bleached bones, indeed.’ Was it her imagination or was there the smallest hint of a smile on those severe lips?

And I really ought to stop finding excuses to study his mouth. Looks are not everything. Looks are no way to judge anyone. And he means to censor innocent, if fanciful, novels, just because she is a girl.

‘Here is the entrance.’ She led the Duke under the arch of yew and into the shadows of the maze. She knew the way to reach the centre, but where had Araminta got to?

‘It is very gloomy in here.’ The voice was still close. Araminta had clearly calmed down somewhat and now she was beginning to sound peevish.

Second left—it looks wider, it would have attracted her. Now right and right again and—

‘There you are, Lady Araminta. Now, follow me and we will soon be at the centre.’

The girl beamed at her. ‘Thank you! Will, do you know the key to the maze?’

‘No. I am relying upon Miss Wingate, otherwise I would be as lost as you are.’

‘I thought you knew everything.’ The wicked look she slanted her brother made Verity want to laugh. The girl had nice, natural manners and a sense of humour that was attractive.

‘All mazes are different,’ the Duke said. ‘I know that much about them.’

They had regained the entrance and now Verity could count in her head. First, then second, then third, then second, then fourth, then fifth...

‘Help!’ That was Althea. They saw her the moment she spoke, standing with her back to them. ‘Oh, there you are.’ She turned as her sister called her name and fell in behind them with a sigh of relief. ‘Basil, the little wretch, has found the centre. He has been mocking me for five minutes at least.’

‘He’ll be sorry,’ Araminta assured her.

And four, then five, then six.

‘Here we are.’ They stepped out into a sunlit circle with a tiny thatched building in its centre.

Basil was perched on a bench on the miniature veranda, swinging his legs. ‘What took you so long?’

His sisters regarded him with loathing. ‘How did you get here so fast?’ Althea demanded.

‘Look at his knees. He crawled through the bottom of the hedges,’ his twin said. ‘You beast, that’s cheating.’

‘I got here first, that’s what counts,’ Basil said with a smirk. ‘I used my intelligence.’

‘And you appear to have ruined a pair of perfectly good pantaloons in the process,’ the Duke said sharply. ‘Besides abandoning your sisters and failing to stand up when ladies appear. The cost of the trousers will be taken from your allowance. You may now apologise to Miss Wingate for your poor manners and will escort your sisters safely back out of the maze by the conventional paths.’

‘I’m sorry, Miss Wingate. But I don’t know the way out.’ Basil was on his feet now, brushing ineffectually at his knees.

‘I marked it,’ Althea said. ‘I tore a scrap of paper from my notebook and dropped it at every turn.’

‘Very clever, Althea.’ The Duke gave her an approving nod and received a brilliant smile in return. ‘But pick up all the paper as you go.’

They filed out obediently, then there was a yelp from Basil and the sound of running feet.

Verity suppressed a snort of laughter and sat down on the bench. ‘I suspect your sisters are taking their revenge on Lord Basil. Shall we sit for a moment? That will allow them to get clear of the maze, then you will not have to see anything requiring a reproof.’

‘They must feel I spend my entire time reproving them.’ The Duke sat down heavily on the veranda steps.

‘You love them and want the best for them. And they know that.’

‘Do you believe so?’ For a moment she thought he was going to lean back against the supporting post, but he recollected himself in time. Doubtless sitting on the steps was quite casual enough for his dignity.

‘That you love them? That is obvious.’ And, surprisingly, she realised it was true. ‘That they know it I can tell from the way they respond to you. They do not sulk or send you unpleasant looks when your back is turned. Are the younger three as intelligent as these?’

‘They are bright,’ he agreed, as though reassuring himself. ‘And, yes, the others are as intelligent. They all were,’ the Duke added, his voice so soft that she thought he was speaking to himself.

Verity guessed she had not been intended to hear those last three words, but she answered the pain in his voice anyway. ‘There were others?’

‘Just one. My eldest half-sister, Arabella. She would be seventeen this year. She died just before my grandfather took me to live with him.’

‘An illness?’ He had fallen silent. Verity suspected he wanted to talk, but was simply unused to speaking to anyone about such an emotional subject. Or perhaps did not think such revelations proper.

‘It was a virulent fever. It is not something that we speak of in case it distresses the children.’

You cannot admit that it distresses you, of course.

‘You may be assured that I do not repeat confidences, Your Grace,’ she said as she got to her feet. ‘Perhaps we should be making our way back.’

‘Indeed. We should return to the sunshine or you will become chilled,’ he said as they began to wind their way back to the entrance.

The Duke seemed happier reverting to his starched-up self, she thought. A pity—she had almost liked the man who had confessed to his anxieties over his siblings, had allowed a little humour to touch him.

‘Is the Bishop fit enough to travel a short distance?’ he asked as they emerged into the sunshine and Verity waved across the garden to where her father sat with Mr Hoskins. ‘Might I hope he will be able to return my call? I would be pleased to entertain him at Stane Hall.’

‘On a good day, certainly. He usually drives to church every Sunday and the Hall is only a short distance beyond that. His health is not entirely predictable, however. I would not want to commit him to any specific day long in advance.’

‘You must be congratulated on your daughterly devotion in keeping house for your father. His indisposition, coming as it did, I believe, at a time when you must have been making your come-out, would have been most difficult for you.’

Verity opened her mouth and closed it again with a snap. Dukes, presumably, thought themselves as entitled as archbishops to make pompous personal observations. A lack of response, she hoped, would choke him off.

‘It is an uplifting example of daughterly duty and devotion to see you sacrificing your own hopes of marriage in this way,’ he continued, finally finding something about her he approved of, it seemed.

Apparently silence was not a strong enough hint. ‘I had no particular hopes, as you put it, at the time of my father’s seizure and I am most certainly not sacrificing anything.’ By the time her father had suffered his stroke her heart had been broken, her hopes betrayed. ‘So many women are yoked in marriage and lose all their freedoms by it. I fully intend to retain mine, Your Grace.’ Her head told her that marriage was too great a gamble and she had proved to herself that her judgement of men was so faulty that she could not trust her heart.

‘Do I understand that you do not approve of marriage?’ The Duke’s tone now was as frosty as she had made hers.

‘It seems to me an excellent way of perpetuating the human race in an orderly manner. It provides for the civilised upbringing of children and shelters the elderly. It certainly contributes greatly to the comfort of men. It is unfortunate that all of this is so often achieved by the sacrifices of the woman concerned.’

‘Sacrifices? A lady is protected and maintained by marriage. Her status is usually enhanced.’

‘And in return a woman loses all freedom, all control of her own money and lands, all autonomy. She becomes utterly subject to the wishes and whims of her husband. I love my father, and will always care for him, but beyond that, I live my life as an independent woman, Your Grace.’

‘None of us is independent, Miss Wingate. Freedom is an illusion. Ladies are restricted by their natural delicacy, gentlemen by their duties and obligations.’

‘Some of us have more freedom than others, it is true,’ she said.

Natural delicacy, my hat! The temptation to say something very indelicate indeed was great, but she controlled it.

‘A duke has a great deal, a married woman very little. I have the privilege of birth and prosperity and I am fully aware that if I were the daughter of an agricultural labourer or a weaver as disabled as my father is now, my life would hold very little freedom. My delicacy, as you put it, would have to be disregarded. I am fortunate and I do not intend to throw away that good fortune simply because social pressure dictates that I should be married.’

The words, And who would be foolish enough to ask you, with that attitude? were almost audible, she thought.

The Duke closed his lips on them. That clearly caused him a struggle because it was a moment before he spoke. ‘I trust that you find the freedoms are worth the sacrifice, Miss Wingate. I see that the children have extricated themselves from the maze. I must bid the Bishop good day and remove them before they disturb his peace any further. Thank you for a most delightful afternoon.’

Liar, Verity thought, as she walked with him towards her father’s seat. He thoroughly disapproves of me and he is clearly regretting those indiscreet confidences in the maze. He never intended to make them so he will like me the less for that.

She kept a smile on her lips as she showed the party out, but it took several minutes pacing up and down the hallway before she could recover it sufficiently to go out to her father. It was a shock to find herself so upset at the unspoken disapproval. She did not like the man, so why should it matter what he thought of her?

‘What did you think of our new neighbour, Papa?’ She exchanged a quick glance with the Chaplain over the Bishop’s head and he nodded encouragingly. Her father was not overtired, it seemed.

‘A fine figure of a man,’ Mr Hoskins translated as her father’s hands moved. ‘A considerable asset to the neighbourhood. He has suffered two bereavements in a short time and finds himself with many responsibilities in addition to acquiring the care of six younger siblings. I feel confident that he will rise to the challenge.’

Her father nodded and mouthed, Most impressed.

‘And what do you think, Mr Hoskins?’ It was too easy to forget that the man had opinions and a voice of his own and she always tried to bring him into the conversation in his own right.

‘His Grace’s reputation does not lie. He seems a perfect paradigm of what a nobleman should be. One cannot envy him the responsibility of so many brothers and sisters as well as having to assume the burden of his great rank at so young an age.’

‘He must be twenty-seven and he behaves as though he is fifty-seven,’ she muttered.

Her father was speaking again. ‘Charming children. Intelligent and lively.’

‘Yes.’ She could agree with that. A pity their half-brother did not have the natural charm to match theirs—or his own looks and breeding.

‘There will be quite a fluttering in the dovecotes when all the hopeful mamas in the district realise what an eligible bachelor has landed in our midst,’ Mr Hoskins said, then bit his lip and gave her father an apologetic look. ‘Most frivolous of me to consider such a thing. And, of course, the poor man is in mourning.’

Her father chuckled and moved his hands slowly enough for Verity to translate. ‘He will not be in mourning forever and there is nothing to stop him looking in the meantime. You never know, he might find a young lady he likes in the neighbourhood.’

‘Papa, really.’ There was a twinkle in his eyes as he looked at her.

You are not going to try matchmaking on my behalf. Not with that man. Or any man.

But of course there was no danger of the Duke taking an interest in her, however much her father might wish it. She had shocked him with her outspoken views on marriage on top of demonstrating that she was an antiquarian hoyden who attacked upstanding aristocrats with mouldering skulls. Miss Verity Wingate was the last woman the Duke of Aylsham would want as a wife.

* * *

‘I like her, she has a nice smile and she isn’t stuffy. Are you going to marry her, Will?’ Basil sat on the carriage seat opposite him and cocked his head to one side like a particularly nosy, and somewhat scruffy, sparrow.

‘Do not refer to a lady as her, Basil. And do not ask intrusive personal questions. I am most certainly not going to marry Miss Wingate.’

Beside him his sisters sighed loudly. ‘But why not?’ Araminta demanded. ‘Miss Wingate is nice. And pretty and she is right next door, which is very convenient.’

‘Do I need to remind you that we are all in mourning? I cannot consider courtship until a year has passed from my grandfather’s death.’ He could well believe that they had no clear concept of the formalities of mourning because they did not even have the colour of their clothing to remind them. Their mother had put her foot down and refused point-blank to allow her daughters to be dressed in black, or even grey or lilac, on the grounds that it would depress their spirits. Will had pointed out that their spirits were supposed to be depressed during the mourning period and she had told him that he was cold and unfeeling.

On the other hand, the children were mourning their father in their own ways, he supposed. Sometimes he came across the girls with suspiciously red eyes and Basil’s more outrageous feats might be a way of distracting himself from painful memories. He had an uneasy suspicion that their upbringing had given them a different, more natural, way of dealing with their emotions than was suitable for him.

‘How stuffy of you, Will,’ Althea said. ‘Being sad about Papa doesn’t alter the fact that you need a wife because of us. I overheard Miss Preston tell Mr Catford that your life would be so much easier if you had a duchess.’

‘Eavesdropping is unbecoming to a person of gentility, Althea,’ Will said automatically. Miss Preston was quite correct: life would be much easier with a wife by his side. And in my bed, a wicked little voice whispered in the back of his mind, prompting his imagination to present him with an image of Miss Wingate rising naked and dripping from the fountain pool. ‘We will not mention the subject again.’

And you can stop it, he snarled at his own imagination as he crossed his legs. She is a hoyden, a bluestocking, an unnatural female opposed to marriage. Utterly unsuitable.

It was bad enough having his stepmother inhabiting the Dower House and infecting the children with her madcap ideas. An unconventional duchess was the last thing he needed.

‘And the Bishop is nice, too,’ Araminta pronounced. ‘I like him. He’s got kind eyes and he talks with his hands and I’m sure he enjoys having visitors. I shall call on him again.’

‘He will come to us if he is well enough.’ Will tried not to contemplate his siblings descending uninvited and unsupervised on the Old Palace in order to observe the Bishop, or to try to enliven his routine. ‘It is not proper to call again until one has received a return visit. Now, tell me what you each learned in your last lesson.’

That, as he might have expected, was greeted by a collective heavy sigh. Will refrained from joining in and reminded himself that no one had ever said that being a duke was easy.

‘Will,’ Basil piped up. ‘What have you done with your cane?’

* * *

‘Who was that man and all those children?’ Melissa demanded as Verity closed the door and leaned back against it.

‘There were only three of them and they are sixteen and fourteen so hardly children, although I agree, they do manage to inhabit the space of about twelve.’ She pushed away from the door and went to flop, in an unladylike manner, into the nearest chair. An hour of the Duke was more than enough. ‘I am sorry if you were disturbed.’

‘We weren’t,’ Melissa assured her. ‘I was pacing up and down seeking inspiration for a truly horrid haunting and saw them out of the window. We had heard the young people earlier, of course, but who is ever disturbed by the sound of happiness?’

‘Very true.’ Prue peered over the top of her Greek grammar. She was lying full length on a bench, propped up on one elbow and naked except for a strategic length of muslin. ‘But you look exhausted, Verity. Come and sit down and have a drink. Bosham brought us some lemonade earlier, before we’d started.’

As far as the staff and anyone else was concerned—including, most especially, the parents of her friends—they came to the Old Palace three times a week to form a reading circle.

If their parents assumed this was a group studying religious tracts, sermons and uplifting works while sewing for the poor, then that, Verity considered, was entirely due to their own imaginations. No one had ever exactly described the nature of their meetings and they certainly all read at some point during those afternoons. Lucy Lambert read music, Melissa Taverner read over her work so far because she did not dare take it home with her, Prudence Scott read textbooks and Jane Newnham, the artist among them, read books on the theory of perspective and colour or the lives of great painters. At the moment she was creating a set of studies of Greek muses, using her friends as models. Verity could not recall which muse represented literature, but Prue and her grammar book made a good enough representation.

Verity flitted between antiquarian papers, Gothic novels, her large embroidery stand where she was creating a tapestry of the fall of Lucifer in vivid colour, books on gardening and a wide drawing table where she was plotting the results of her excavations on the mounds. At the moment the skull perched on top of her notes like a bizarre paperweight, staring blankly at Prue’s exposed curves.

The tower chamber was situated over her ground-floor sitting room and bedchamber and the maids came in once a week to clean. When they did all traces of her friends’ work was locked safely away in cupboards.

There would, as Melissa said, be hell to pay if her father, the local squire, discovered she was reading novels, let alone writing them. He was set and determined on marrying her off well. The other parents were as determined to present perfect, conformable, young ladies to the Marriage Mart and were growing increasingly impatient as their daughters—all aged twenty-three—remained unwed and perilously close to being on the shelf.

When the Wingates had settled permanently at the Old Palace, Verity had made friends fast, but it had taken a month or so before she discovered the secret yearnings and ambitions of the four who became closest to her. Giving them a safe sanctuary to exercise their interests and talents fitted in well with the way she was living her own life, but she worried about what would happen to them. Sooner or later their parents were going to insist on arranging marriages and, unlike her, clearly remaining unwed to care for her father, the others had no excuse and would have to obey.

What her friends needed were liberal-minded gentlemen who would fall in love with them for their own sake, but where they were to find them in the limited society of rural Dorset, she had no idea. What would happen was that their fathers would decide on the most advantageous match among the gentry of the county and put pressure their daughters until they agreed.

And the problem was, they would all give in eventually, even if they did manage to hold out against the worst of the crop.

Then it struck her—none of the local gentry offered the slightest competition to a duke. No hopeful mama was going to settle for a mere esquire or baronet, or even the heir of a retired nabob or admiral, if there was the faintest chance her daughter might catch the eye of one of the foremost noblemen in the land.

She looked round at her friends and saw they were all waiting, with various degrees of patience, for her to tell them who the man with the children had been.

‘That man was the Duke of Aylsham,’ she announced. ‘He would thoroughly disapprove of us, but he is going to buy us almost a year of freedom.’

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