Much Ado About You

‘Why did you—’ Tess asked and hesitated. Was she right in thinking that proper English ladies didn’t task personal questions? But she had to know. ‘Why did you say that you’ve no plans to marry, Your Grace?’

Then she realised that he might guess that they had discussed marrying him, or even think that she had the ambition herself. ‘Not -’ she added hastily – ‘that I have any personal interest in the question.’

But Holbrook was looking at her with all the oblivion of an older brother. It was clear that he had never even considered the possibility that he might make her, or one of her sisters, for that matter, a duchess. Annabel would have to look to one of the other seven dukes if she wished to be a duchess. Or perhaps – Tess looked down the table again and caught Annabel laughing at the earl -perhaps she could simply turn to their guardian’s friend.

‘There are a few of us who eschew the whole process,’ Holbrook said. ‘And I’m afraid that I’m one of them. But it’s not due to misanthropy, Miss Essex.’

‘Do please call me Tess,’ she said, drinking a bit more champagne. ‘After all, we are family now.’

‘I would be more than pleased,’ he said. ‘But you must call me Rafe. I loathe being addressed as Your Grace. And may I say that I am tremendously happy to have acquired a family.’

She smiled at him, and there was a moment of perfect ease between them, as if they’d been siblings for life.

‘I’ve never had a sister,’ he said, nodding to the footman who wished to refill her champagne glass. He was drinking a large glass of something golden and quite without bubbles. ‘I believe it’s quite a different relationship from that one has with a brother.’

Their Debrett’s may have been two years out of date, but it did list the duke’s brother, with a little note, ‘deceased’, beside it. Tess’s champagne sent tingling chills down her throat; the very idea of losing one of her sisters was inconceivable. ‘I know that you once had a brother,’ she said rather haltingly. ‘I am sorry, Your Grace.’

‘Rafe,’ he corrected her. ‘To be honest, I think of myself as still having a brother. He simply isn’t with me any longer.’

‘I know just what you mean,’ Tess said impulsively. ‘I keep expecting Papa to walk in the door. Or even my mother, and she’s been gone for years.’

‘A maudlin pair of us, then,’ he said, his eyes twinkling.

But Tess could see the sadness at the back of those grey-blue eyes, and felt another sudden surge of liking for their unkempt, rather lonely guardian.

‘Now tell me what it’s like having sisters — and so many of them,’ he said, drinking from his glass again.

‘Sisters are very good at keeping secrets,’ Tess answered. ‘My sisters and I keep reams of them amongst ourselves.’

‘Of what sort, pray?’

‘These days, they are mostly to do with matters of the heart,’ Tess said, wondering if perhaps she had had rather more champagne than was entirely wise.

‘Ah,’ he said. And then: ‘Should I be expecting a group of Scottish suitors to arrive at my doorstep, then?’

‘Not for me, alas,’ Tess said, devoting herself to a piece of plaice in a delicate cream sauce. ‘In fact, not for any of us. Papa had great plans, you see. Once he won a truly large purse, he was going to bring us to London for the season. He wouldn’t listen to the suits of local gentlemen.’

‘If you’ll forgive the impertinent question, did any of you ever develop an affection for any of these suitors? For surely they existed, your father’s permission or not.’

‘Here and there,’ Tess said airily, ‘one developed a tendresse. But it was a bit difficult, you understand, due to Papa’s strictures as concerned the local nobility.’

His face was alive with interest, which was a heady pleasure for Tess. When was the last time that someone besides her sisters showed an interest in her opinions?

‘Did you ever gain acquaintance with one of these inappropriate men? Is that one of your many secrets?’

‘If I tell you,’ she said with a small hiccup, ‘you must needs tell me a secret as well.’

‘The only problem will be thinking of one,’ he said, ‘for I lead a tediously proper life. So is some Scottish lad fair slain for love of you?’

‘I did fall in love once, with the butcher’s boy,’ she told him. ‘He was called Nebby, and he was truly an enchanting young man although not precisely eligible.’

‘I should think not. What did Lord Brydone do on learning of this remarkable attachment?’

‘My father encouraged it,’ Tess said, giving him a small grin.

Rafe blinked. ‘Really?’

‘He thought it was a most useful connection, because Nebby brought me cuts of meat as a sign of his affection. We were,’ she added, ‘both eleven years old, and so my father had little fear of permanent affection between us. The truth is that Nebby cast me off, married at a young age, and is already the father of two spanking young future butchers.’

‘Young Nebby was the last to have captured your affections?’

‘The very last,’ Tess nodded.

Rafe had managed to shovel down his supper, whereas she kept forgetting and allowing the footman to take away untouched plates of food. He touched his glass of golden liquor to her champagne. ‘I believe that you and I are of a type. Untouched by matters of the heart.’

‘Alas,’ Tess said. ‘Love doesn’t seem to be my forte. I find courtship rather tedious, if the truth be known.’ Then it occurred to her that he would likely take that news with dismay, given the idea that his guardianship extended until she married. ‘Not that I am averse to the idea of matrimony,’ she hastened to tell him. ‘You needn’t worry that I shall plague your household forever; I fully intend to marry.’

‘You relieve my soul,’ Rafe said, laughing.

‘Now,’ she said, leaning toward him, ‘you’ll have to tell me a secret. I would like to know what’s turned you into such a misanthrope about marriage.’

‘Why on earth would you be interested in such a triviality?’ Rafe asked. Unless he was much mistaken, his new ward was just a tiny bit muzzy on champagne. Likely a guardian wasn’t supposed to allow his wards to become chirping-merry. Perhaps he should substitute lemonade for champagne? But he loathed a hypocrite, and he had no intention of giving up his brandy. He drank half the bumper on the thought.

Tess was talking, and he pulled his attention back to her with a jerk. ‘Because if you don’t, I’ll allow Annabel to continue in the mistaken belief that she could become Duchess of Holbrook with a mere crook of her little finger.’

His eyes widened, and he looked down the table. At that moment, Annabel looked up and smiled. There was nothing overt about her smile. She was, quite simply, one of the most beautiful women Rafe had ever seen, with her buttery hair that gleamed with the dull gold of old silk in the candlelight, her eyes tilted slightly at the corners, marked with sooty eyelashes. Even in drab mourning clothing she was formidable. But he hadn’t the faintest inclination to marry her, magnificent or not.

‘She would make a lovely duchess,’ her sister told him.

Rafe narrowed his eyes at Tess. ‘I see you have some of your father’s bravado.’ There was Annabel, glowing like a piece of expensive jewellery, down the table. And then here was Tess. Her clear blue eyes had the same tilt as her sister’s, but they spoke of intelligence, courage, and humour, rather than pleasure. ‘You have no plans to become a duchess, do you?’ he asked, wondering as he said it whether the brandy had gone to his head the way the champagne had to hers.

She shook her head.

‘You would really terrify me,’ he said frankly. ‘In fact, should you have made up your mind in that direction, I might have had to flee to the North Country.’

‘A remarkable compliment,’ Tess said. ‘I think I would be more moved by it had you not mentioned the prospect of flight.’

Just then Brinkley entered the dining room and stooped at Rafe’s side. ‘Mr Felton has arrived from London,’ he said. ‘He has agreed to join you for supper. I suggest that we place him beside Miss Essex.’

‘A friend,’ Rafe explained, turning to Tess. And then, to Lady Clarice, ‘Yes indeed, Mr Felton. We were at school together, although that was many years ago now.’

‘Not so long,’ Lady Clarice said archly. ‘You’re not more than your mid-thirties, Your Grace, and I won’t have you pretending to be an elder statesman!’

Tess blinked. Perhaps the earl was right, and Lady Clarice pictured herself a future duchess. Well, if Annabel rushed to imagine herself in the position, why should not every widowed or single lady in the vicinity?

She caught the duke’s eye. He gave her a crooked smile as he leaned closer to Lady Clarice, who had declared the need to tell the duke something tremendously humorous that happened at the last Silchester assembly.

A footman began placing a setting to the left of Tess. She finished her plaice, listening to Lady Clarice prattle to Rafe of an agreeable interlude in which a dear, dear friend of hers had quite lost the anchoring on her bodice while in the midst of a crowded room, or so Tess understood. From Lady Clarice’s relish in repeating the episode, one grasped immediately the idea that the friend in question had neglected to put on sufficient undergarments.